Zend Framework 2: Navigation

Question

In my controller I create the Navigation object and passing it to the view

$navigation = new \Zend\Navigation\Navigation(array(
    array(
            'label' => 'Album',
            'controller' => 'album',
            'action' => 'index',
            'route' => 'album',
        ),
    ));

There trying to use it

<?php echo $this->navigation($this->navigation)->menu() ?>

And get the error:

Fatal error: Zend\Navigation\Exception\DomainException: Zend\Navigation\Page\Mvc::getHref cannot execute as no Zend\Mvc\Router\RouteStackInterface instance is composed in Zend\View\Helper\Navigation\AbstractHelper.php on line 471

But navigation which I use in layout, so as it is written here: http://adam.lundrigan.ca/2012/07/quick-and-dirty-zf2-zend-navigation/ works. What is my mistake?

Thank you.

Answer 1

The problem is a missing Router (or to be more precise, a Zend\Mvc\Router\RouteStackInterface). A route stack is a collection of routes and can use a route name to turn that into an url. Basically it accepts a route name and creates an url for you:

$url = $routeStack->assemble('my/route');

This happens inside the MVC Pages of Zend\Navigation too. The page has a route parameter and when there is a router available, the page assembles it's own url (or in Zend\Navigation terms, an href). If you do not provide the router, it cannot assemble the route and thus throws an exception.

You must inject the router in every page of the navigation:

$navigation = new Navigation($config);
$router     = $serviceLocator->get('router');

function injectRouter($navigation, $router) {
  foreach ($navigation->getPages() as $page) {
    if ($page instanceof MvcPage) {
      $page->setRouter($router);
    }

    if ($page->hasPages()) {
      injectRouter($page, $router);
    }
  }
}

As you see it is a recursive function, injecting the router into every page. Tedious! Therefore there is a factory to do this for you. There are four simple steps to make this happen.

STEP ONE

Put the navigation configuration in your module configuration first. Just as you have a default navigation, you can create a second one secondary.

'navigation' => array(
    'secondary' => array(
        'page-1' => array(
            'label' => 'First page',
            'route' => 'route-1'
        ),
        'page-2' => array(
            'label' => 'Second page',
            'route' => 'route-2'
        ),
    ),
),

You have routes to your first page (route-1) and second page (route-2).

STEP TWO

A factory will convert this into a navigation object structure, you need to create a class for that first. Create a file SecondaryNavigationFactory.php in your MyModule/Navigation/Service directory.

namespace MyModule\Navigation\Service;

use Zend\Navigation\Service\DefaultNavigationFactory;

class SecondaryNavigationFactory extends DefaultNavigationFactory
{
    protected function getName()
    {
        return 'secondary';
    }
}

See I put the name secondary here, which is the same as your navigation key.

STEP THREE

You must register this factory to the service manager. Then the factory can do it's work and turn the configuration file into a Zend\Navigation object. You can do this in your module.config.php:

'service_manager' => array(
    'factories' => array(
        'secondary_navigation' => 'MyModule\Navigation\Service\SecondaryNavigationFactory'
    ),
)

See I made a service secondary_navigation here, where the factory will return a Zend\Navigation instance then. If you do now $sm->get('secondary_navigation') you will see that is a Zend\Navigation\Navigation object.

STEP FOUR

Tell the view helper to use this navigation and not the default one. The navigation view helper accepts a "navigation" parameter where you can state which navigation you want. In this case, the service manager has a service secondary_navigation and that is the one we need.

<?= $this->navigation('secondary_navigation')->menu() ?>

Now you will have the navigation secondary used in this view helper.

Disclosure: this answer is the same as I gave on this question: https://stackoverflow.com/a/12973806/434223