Including a PHP file in a sidebar box.

[Guest Jon Bartus]

Hi all,

Not positive this belongs here but I figured this was my best shot.

My client wants me to add a poll to the sidebar on his site and being naturally lazy I decided to use Fpoll for this purpose. My issue mainly lies in getting the poll file to include into the sidebar. I am adding the box by directly modifying index.tpl (If anyone wants to explain how I can make it use its own box template file they are hereby entitled to my firstborn son.) but while I can get the include to seemingly work it is resisting showing the poll itself. Here is the relevant information:

Store location: http://www.rackemtees.com/store/

Poll location: http://www.rackemtees.com/store/Fpoll/poll.php

Include Code:

					   <div class="boxTitleLeft" align="center"><img src="http://rackemtees.com/store/skins/Rack_Em/styleImages/pollhead.png" height="19" width="156" /></div>

			<div class="boxContentRight">

				<?php include("../Fpoll/poll.php"); ?>

			</div>

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Jon

[Guest cherryaa]

This will be very quick and only a little help, but .... You simply can't include php directly in the template files. You can, however, create one of those {} placeholders relatively easily (I may regret saying that!) by calling your include to one of the .inc files and then copying the way Alistair does his assignments.

I seem to remember having to add a line to index.php - the one in the root directory - as well. I've only done this once; with luck a CC expert will fill you in a bit more!

Hope this gets you started, anyway

Edited to add: Or, you could get it running on a page of its own & then ajax it in (or use an iframe). Which is probably what I'd do.

Cherry.

[Guest Jon Bartus]

This will be very quick and only a little help, but .... You simply can't include php directly in the template files. You can, however, create one of those {} placeholders relatively easily (I may regret saying that!) by calling your include to one of the .inc files and then copying the way Alistair does his assignments.

I seem to remember having to add a line to index.php - the one in the root directory - as well. I've only done this once; with luck a CC expert will fill you in a bit more!

Hope this gets you started, anyway

Edited to add: Or, you could get it running on a page of its own & then ajax it in (or use an iframe). Which is probably what I'd do.

Cherry.

Yeah, I was hoping not to have to iframe (or ajax) it in...

I am disappointed to hear that I can't include it directly, could you perchance assist with creating a {} placeholder as quite honestly this methodology is beyond my experience. Just a simple explanation of how I would do that would more than suffice.

Regards,

Jon

[bsmither]

There are a couple of threads that discuss how to do this at www.cubecartforums.org.

Search for "add a box" or "Security Emblem".

[Guest cherryaa]

OK, you've probably figured it out by now, but I've just been back over it & am posting here for posterity (mainly in case I forget again!).

Caveat: I was not following any instructions and may have made an error. But my simple test works fine on our long-suffering test site.

New file: includes/boxes/testInclude.php

<?php 



$newContent = "Included this!";





$box_content=new XTemplate("skins/".$config['skinDir']."/styleTemplates/boxes/testInclude.tpl");



		$box_content->assign("NEWSTUFF",$newContent);

		$box_content->parse("test_inc");

		$box_content = $box_content->text("test_inc");

		

?>

New file: styleTemplates/boxes/testInclude.tpl

<!-- BEGIN: test_inc -->

<div class="boxTitleLeft">TEST INCLUDE</div>

<div class="boxContentLeft">

	<span class="txtCopy">

	<strong>The file said:</strong> {NEWSTUFF}<br />

  </span>

</div>

<div class="boxFootLeft">&nbsp;</div>

<!-- END: test_inc -->

Edited file /index.php, line 180

	

	include("includes/boxes/testInclude.inc.php");

	$body->assign("TEST_INC",$box_content);

Edited file styleTemplates/global/index.tpl

					{TEST_INC}

					{RANDOM_PROD}

					{POPULAR_PRODUCTS}

So now there definitely is a thread on it

Cherry.

[lainyrache]

Thanks Cherryaa for posting this... I found it really helpful.

If anyone is wanting to do this on version 4, I used this guide but with the following amendments... and it all seems to be ok!

Instead of adding the include code to /index.php

add it to /includes/global/index.inc.php

and change to

require_once"includes".CC_DS."boxes".CC_DS."testinclude.inc.php";

$body->assign("TEST_INC",$box_content);

And in includes/boxes/testInclude.php

change line 6 to 

$box_content=new XTemplate("boxes".CC_DS."testinclude.tpl");

Hope that helps!

Rachael