Zend_Navigation incompatible with Zend_Router when writing controller/actions?

Question

Novice Zend Framework developer here trying to figure out a simple solution to a Zend Routing problem. I'm sure one of you pros can lend a hand.

I have a website (built in Zend Framework using Zend_Navigation) that contains 75% static HTML page content and a few controllers. Top level navigation is built in Zend_Navigation, looping through partials.

Because of my work I build a lot of sites along these lines (containing lots of static pages) so I want to get this right. I don't want to set up controllers and actions for each and every one of these static pages (there are many) and I wanted to create a solution where I used Zend_Controller_Router_Route to route all static content automatically through to a StaticController whose job it would be to include or render .phtml pages based on a controller/action pairing in the URL from some sort of directory like /layouts/staticpages

Because of SEO and various reasons I don't want to have the controller pairing in the URL for these static pages be visible as /static/page/page1... It has to be "real world descriptions" of the /section/page (eg. advantages/someadvantage )

Here is the problem: Using Zend_Controller_Router_Route can do the job when I set up the correct routes BUT it messes something awful with Zend Navigation... I assume because Zend_Navigaion doesn't play nice with on-the-fly controller/action switching.

Code example:

$router = Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance()->getRouter();
$route = new Zend_Controller_Router_Route('advantages/:page/*',
  array('controller' => 'static', 'action' => 'display', 'mode' => 'advantages',
    'page' => 'index'));
$router->addRoute('advantages', $route);

This handles the job of switching pages in the "advantages" section well enough, but Zend_Navigation's automatic controller/action writing AND the highlighting of "active" nodes ends up being all screwed up because it now thinks that its controller is "static" and action is "display".

Is Zend_Navigation fundamentally incompatible with Zend_Controller_Router_Route? Is there a better way of doing this single static page controller or handling static content across the board?

Answer 1

Since you are using one controller/action for all static pages, you must customize your Zend Navigation before displaying it.

Check Example 4 in the Zend Documentation.

// the following route is added to the ZF router
Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance()->getRouter()->addRoute(
    'article_view', // route name
    new Zend_Controller_Router_Route(
        'a/:id',
        array(
            'module'     => 'news',
            'controller' => 'article',
            'action'     => 'view',
            'id'         => null
        )
    )
);

// a page is created with a 'route' option
$page = new Zend_Navigation_Page_Mvc(array(
    'label'      => 'A news article',
    'route'      => 'article_view',
    'module'     => 'news',    // required for isActive(), see note above
    'controller' => 'article', // required for isActive(), see note above
    'action'     => 'view',    // required for isActive(), see note above
    'params'     => array('id' => 42)
));

// returns: /a/42
$page->getHref();