New Page For OpenCart

Question

I am trying to create a whole new page for OpenCart for a News section, and I was pretty sure I created all the right files, the page renders but it is blank in the middle (Renders the header and footer fine). What did I miss?!?

Link To Hit Page: index.php?route=common/news&news_id=A_NUMBER

Table Dump:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `news` (
  `id` int(255) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `user_id` int(255) NOT NULL,
  `title` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  `body` longtext NOT NULL,
  `added` timestamp NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
  `views` int(255) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB  DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=0 ;

Language (news.php):

<?php
// Text
$_['heading_title'] = '%s';
?>

Controller (news.php):

<?php  
class ControllerCommonNews extends Controller {
    private $error = array();

    public function index() {
        $this->language->load('common/news');

        $this->data['heading_title'] = $this->language->get('heading_title');

        $this->data['breadcrumbs'] = array();

        $this->data['breadcrumbs'][] = array(
            'text'      => $this->language->get('text_home'),
            'href'      => $this->url->link('common/home'),         
            'separator' => false
        );

        $news_id = $_REQUEST['news_id'];

        $this->load->model('common/news');

                $news_info = $this->model_common_news->getNews($news_id);

                if ($news_info) {
                    $this->data['breadcrumbs'][] = array(
                        'title'      => $news_info['title'],
                        'body'       => $news_info['body']
                    );
                }

        if (file_exists(DIR_TEMPLATE . $this->config->get('config_template') . '/template/common/news.tpl')) {
            $this->template = $this->config->get('config_template') . '/template/common/news.tpl';
        } else {
            $this->template = 'default/template/common/news.tpl';
        }    

        $this->children = array(
            'common/column_left',
            'common/column_right',
            'common/content_top',
            'common/content_bottom',
            'common/footer',
            'common/header'
        );

            $this->response->setOutput($this->render());
        }
    }
?>

Model (news.php):

<?php
class ModelCommonNews extends Model {

    public function getNews($news_id) {
        $query = $this->db->query("SELECT DISTINCT * FROM " . DB_PREFIX . "news WHERE id = '" . (int)$news_id . "'");

        return $query->row;
    }

}
?>

View (news.tpl):

<?php echo $header; ?><?php echo $column_left; ?><?php echo $column_right; ?>
<div id="content"><?php echo $content_top; ?>
<h1 style="display: none;"><?php echo $heading_title; ?></h1>
<?php echo $content_bottom; ?>
</div>
<?php echo $footer; ?>

If more info is needed ask away!!! Any help is greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

You need to assign some values to the $this->data array in your controller, and you also need to add those variables to your view.

Controller

if ($news_info) {
   $this->data['breadcrumbs'][] = array(
      'title'      => $news_info['title'],
      'body'       => $news_info['body']
   );
   $this->data['news_title'] = $news_info['news_title'];
   $this->data['news_text'] = $news_info['news_text'];                
}

View

<?php echo $header; ?><?php echo $column_left; ?><?php echo $column_right; ?>
<div id="content"><?php echo $content_top; ?>
<h1 style="display: none;"><?php echo $heading_title; ?></h1>
<h2><?php echo $news_title; ?></h2>
<div><?php echo $news_text; ?></div>
<?php echo $content_bottom; ?>
</div>
<?php echo $footer; ?>

Something like that should work.

• Disclaimer. I don't really have any experience using OpenCart. I downloaded the source and looked at a couple controllers and views, and it appears that this is the way they are doing it.