Using Different Output Formats¶

The Model-View-Controller-Paradigm (MVC), as described in chapter 2, has many decisive advantages: It separates the model from the user interaction and it allows different output formats for the same data. We want to discuss the later.

Often different output formats are useful when generating content for CSV files, RSS feeds or print views. On the example of the blog we will show you, how you can extend your Extension with a print view.

Lets assume you have programed a HTML view for a list of blog posts. The Fluid template of this view is Resources/Private/Templates/Post/list.html. Now you want to add a print view, which is formatted differently. Create a new template Resources/Private/Templates/Post/list.print and write the appropriate Fluid markup to generate the print view. You can use the format attribute of the link ViewHelper to generate a link to the print view:

<f:link.action action="list" format="print">Print View</f:link.action>

The same list action is being called that was used for the HTML view. However, Fluid doesn’t choose the file list.html but list.print, because the format attribute of the link.action ViewHelper changed the format to print, our print view. You notice: The format is being reflected in the file ending of the template.

rss = PAGE
rss {
   typeNum = 100
   10 =< tt_content.list.20.*[ExtensionKey]*_*[PluginName]*

   config {
   disableAllHeaderCode = 1
   additionalHeaders = Content-type:application/xml
   xhtml_cleaning = 0
   admPanel = 0
   }
}