ezComponents View Handler for Zend_Pdf

My previous posting discussed different view handlers based on routing information. One example was the PDF View which was implemented rather hackish through overwriting the createResponseBody() function of ezcMvcView. Derick told me the way to go would be writing my own PDF view handler. Since this is a rather lengthy topic I created this new post that only discusses using Zend\_Pdf as a View Handler in the new ezComponents MvcTools.

The code for the View Handler would look like the following:

abstract class myPdfViewHandler implements ezcMvcViewHandler
{
    /**
     * Contains the zone name
     *
     * @var string
     */
    protected $zoneName;

    /**
     * Contains the variables that will be available in the template.
     *
     * @var array(mixed)
     */
    protected $variables = array();

    /**
     * Pdf object to be rendered.
     *
     * @var Zend_Pdf
     */
    protected $pdf;

    /**
     * Creates a new view handler, where $zoneName is the name of the block and
     * $templateLocation the location of a view template.
     *
     * @var string $zoneName
     * @var string $templateLocation
     */
    public function __construct( $zoneName, $templateLocation = null )
    {
        $this->zoneName = $zoneName;
    }

    /**
     * Adds a variable to the template, which can then be used for rendering
     * the view.
     *
     * @param string $name
     * @param mixed $value
     */
    public function send( $name, $value )
    {
        $this->variables[$name] = $value;
    }

    /**
     * Processes the template with the variables added by the send() method.
     * The result of this action should be retrievable through the getResult() method.
     */
    public function process( $last )
    {
        // template method
    }

    /**
     * Returns the value of the property $name.
     *
     * @throws ezcBasePropertyNotFoundException if the property does not exist.
     * @param string $name
     * @ignore
     */
    public function __get( $name )
    {
        return $this->variables[$name];
    }

    /**
     * Returns true if the property $name is set, otherwise false.
     *
     * @param string $name
     * @return bool
     * @ignore
     */
    public function __isset( $name )
    {
        return array_key_exists( $name, $this->variables );
    }

    /**
     * Returns the name of the template, as set in the constructor.
     *
     * @return string
     */
    public function getName()
    {
        return $this->zoneName;
    }

    /**
     * Returns the result of the process() method.
     *
     * @return mixed
     */
    public function getResult()
    {
        if($this->pdf instanceof Zend_Pdf) {
            return $this->pdf->render();
        } else {
            throw new Exception("Could not render PDF.");
        }
    }
}

Now you would implement a concrete PDF view handler by extending myPdfViewHandler.

class myConcretePdfViewHandler extends myPdfViewHandler {
    public function process( $last ) 
    {
        $pdf = new Zend_Pdf();
        // do concrete PDF drawing stuff here

        // save PDF here, will be rendered in getResult()
        $this->pdf = $pdf;
    }
}

And your ezcMvcView implementation will make of createZones() and look like the following:

class myPdfView extends ezcMvcView {
    function createZones( $layout )
    {
        $zones = array(); 
        // A decision which concrete Pdf Handler should be used would be decided on here.
        $zones[] = new myConcretePdfViewHandler( 'concreteA' );
        return $zones;
    }
}

There you go!