Widgets and page field

[OLSA]

Hello for all,

I try to find solution for my problem but without success.

I want to create selectable "widgets" option (banners) inside pages, and for that try to use Ryan "Blogprofile" principle:

1. create page widgets (hidden) with blank ("no file") template

2. inside page Widgets, child pages are different type of content (image+link, text box with some link, link lists etc...)

3. every "banner" has it's own template with markup

Inside Home page I created page field type (asmSelect) and set that selectable parent template is "widgets". 

And all that works, no any problems with administration - I can select desired widget/banner.

Because some desired eg. "Home" page doesn't know what kind of content is some widget (image+link, or text box with link, some list etc...) I use this in _main.php

// _main.php

$widgets = $page->widgets;
if(!$widgets || !count($widgets)) $widgets = $homepage->widgets;
foreach($widgets as $widget) {
  echo $widget->render(); // echo $widget shows correct ID
}

And some "banner" inside banner template has this (example):

// banner.php

$out = "<h4>{$page->title}</h4>";
echo $out;

But I have problem that page (website) not load?

Inside errors log ("site/assets/logs") I don't have any problem, everything is clean.

My opinion is that I don't use correctly render() method??? My template structure is like latest PW (2.5.3) multilanguage profile.

Thanks for any help.

[Macrura]

not totally sure, but i think you are trying to render a page without a .php template; how would the system know how to render the widget, maybe i'm not seeing your full picture..

[OLSA]

@Macrura thanks for answer,

but Yes I have template file for every widget type (eg. banner.php), and parrent page (Widgets) use template but without file (just like Widgets inside "Blogprofile").

[OLSA]

I get totally strange behavior with website loading, and at some moments I get this error inside error. log:

"Maximum function nesting level of '100' reached, aborting! (line 733 of ......wire\core\Page.php)"

I tried to change limit to 200, and also disable xdebug, but that didn't solve my problem.

I will try to find some different approach to get selectable widgets inside pages/templates (try to avoid render() method).

Thanks. 

[ESRCH]

As Macrura pointed out,

1. create page widgets (hidden) with blank ("no file") template

seems to indicate that you have not linked the widget template with the banner.php file. When using $widget->render(), Processwire will check the template of the $widget Page object (I assume it's the widget template), and use its template file to render. If it doesn't have any (i.e. if you didn't set a template file), it will simply return an empty string. What you would need to do is manually set the template file to use for rendering like this:

// Assumes that "banner.php" is in the /site/templates folder
$widget->render($config->paths->templates . "banner.php");

But I think that the better way to do this is as follows:

• Create a widgets-catalog template with no template file, but with access restrictions to prevent anyone from viewing directly this page and its children. Then create a "Widgets catalog" page. This will be the parent page for all your different widgets, whatever their type.
• Create different templates for different widget types (e.g., text-banner, image-banner, etc.) which each have the relevant fields (file + link fields for the image-banner, text + link fields for the text-banner, etc.). Each of these templates has a corresponding template file in the /site/templates folder.
• Create a widgets page field, with selectable pages set to having "Widgets catalog" as the parent page.
• Add the widgets field to the home page and any other pages that you want.

Now you can select any widget type with the widgets field, and use $widget->render(), which will use the correct template to render.

[OLSA]

But I think that the better way to do this is as follows:

• Create a widgets-catalog template with no template file, but with access restrictions to prevent anyone from viewing directly this page and its children. Then create a "Widgets catalog" page. This will be the parent page for all your different widgets, whatever their type.
• Create different templates for different widget types (e.g., text-banner, image-banner, etc.) which each have the relevant fields (file + link fields for the image-banner, text + link fields for the text-banner, etc.). Each of these templates has a corresponding template file in the /site/templates folder.
• Create a widgets page field, with selectable pages set to having "Widgets catalog" as the parent page.
• Add the widgets field to the home page and any other pages that you want.

Now you can select any widget type with the widgets field, and use $widget->render(), which will use the correct template to render.

Yes, that is what I done, sorry if I was not clear enough in my first post.

[Macrura]

sometimes i do wigets with functions, sometimes with render, and sometimes with includes, the latter being explained here:

https://processwire.com/talk/topic/8635-simple-example-for-widget-management/

[Jan Romero]

The maximum function nesting thing reeks of recursion. Maybe one of your widgets tries to render itself or some other page that also has this widget? Perhaps inside a prepended/appended file? Is _main.inc auto-appended?

[OLSA]

The maximum function nesting thing reeks of recursion. Maybe one of your widgets tries to render itself or some other page that also has this widget? Perhaps inside a prepended/appended file? Is _main.inc auto-appended?

Yes and thanks for this, because that's help me.

What I want is that widgets (partials) need to be last in processing - and - widget can be any kind of content type (template).

Also, I know that all this can be done using some checks (function) and with known path to some partial (eg. $config->paths->templates . "banner.php" ) - but I want flexible principle inside main layout template file, and use at least possible logic for that job (later some new partials can be easily added to some new pages - without coding).

And @ Jan Romer, in my case _main.php is appended, and because I neglected that very important part - I get website loading problem. 

Finally I solve my problem when added 'appendFile'=>null to render() options.

// _main.php
// main layout template file
// appended

$widgets = $page->widgets;
if(!$widgets || !count($widgets)) $widgets = $homepage->widgets;
foreach($widgets as $widget) {
  echo $widget->render('', ['appendFile'=>null]); //'appendFile'=>null
}

With this I get desired result, very simple can add different content type widgets (partials, banners) to different pages.

Best regards and thanks!