View\Manager & View\Provider

The role of the (eZ\Publish\Core\MVC\Symfony\)View\Manager is to select the right template for displaying a given content item or location. It aggregates objects called content and location view providers which respectively implement eZ\Publish\Core\MVC\Symfony\View\Provider\Content and eZ\Publish\Core\MVC\Symfony\View\Provider\Location interfaces.

Each time a content item is to be displayed through the Content\ViewController, the View\Manager iterates over the registered content or location View\Provider objects and calls getView().

Provided View\Provider implementations

Name Usage

View provider configuration

Based on application configuration.
Formerly known as Template override system.

eZ\Publish\Core\MVC\Legacy\View\Provider\Content

eZ\Publish\Core\MVC\Legacy\View\Provider\Location

Forwards view selection to the legacy kernel by running the old content/view module.
Pagelayout used is the one configured in ezpublish_legacy.<scope>.view_default_layout.
For more details about the <scope> please refer to the scope configuration documentation.

Custom View\Provider

Difference between `View\Provider\Location` and `View\Provider\Content`

A View\Provider\Location only deals with Location objects and implements eZ\Publish\Core\MVC\Symfony\View\Provider\Location interface.
A View\Provider\Content only deals with ContentInfo objects and implements eZ\Publish\Core\MVC\Symfony\View\Provider\Content interface.

When to develop a custom `View\Provider\(Location|Content)`

You want a custom template selection based on a very specific state of your application
You depend on external resources for view selection
You want to override the default one (based on configuration) for some reason

View\Provider objects need to be properly registered in the service container with the ezpublish.location_view_provider or ezpublish.content_view_provider service tag.

parameters:
    acme.location_view_provider.class: Acme\DemoBundle\Content\MyLocationViewProvider

services:
    acme.location_view_provider:
        class: %ezdemo.location_view_provider.class%
        tags:
            - {name: ezpublish.location_view_provider, priority: 30}

Tag attribute name Usage

priority

An integer giving the priority to the View\Provider\(Content|Location) in the View\Manager.

The priority range is from -255 to 255

Example

<?php

namespace Acme\DemoBundle\Content;

use eZ\Publish\Core\MVC\Symfony\View\ContentView;
use eZ\Publish\Core\MVC\Symfony\View\Provider\Location as LocationViewProvider;
use eZ\Publish\API\Repository\Values\Content\Location;

class MyLocationViewProvider implements LocationViewProvider
{
    /**
     * Returns a ContentView object corresponding to $location, or void if not applicable
     *
     * @param \eZ\Publish\API\Repository\Values\Content\Location $location
     * @param string $viewType
     * @return \eZ\Publish\Core\MVC\Symfony\View\ContentView|null
     */
    public function getView( Location $location, $viewType )
    {
        // Let's check location Id
        switch ( $location->id )
        {
            // Special template for home page, passing "foo" variable to the template
            case 2:
                return new ContentView( "AcmeDemoBundle:$viewType:home.html.twig", array( 'foo' => 'bar' ) );
        }
 
        // ContentType identifier (formerly "class identifier")
        switch ( $location->contentInfo->contentType->identifier )
        {
            // For view full, it will load AcmeDemoBundle:full:small_folder.html.twig
            case 'folder':
                return new ContentView( "AcmeDemoBundle:$viewType:small_folder.html.twig" );
        }
    }
}