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I am totally Joomla noob and trying to figure out how to control MVC in Joomla. I've read this "Developing a MVC Component" in Joomla basic tutorial and understand that the main controller is located under components/com_component/controller.php & other file is components/com_helloworld/helloworld.php which is pointing to controller.php file to execute the request. The question is, I want to create new controller folder and put all controllers in that folder like below. How to do that? Controllers folder

Any advise is really appreciated. Thank you so much!!

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I think you're confusing the purpose of your main / master controller (controller.php) and subcontrollers (everything in the /controllers folder). For more on this, see the docs.

The main controller is typically used to do what you mention in your comment (render a view based on the view parameter, usually specified in the URL). In controller.php, the function that does this is called display(). So the following URL:

http://example.com/index.php?option=com_mycomponent&view=test

Will result in calling the display() function in controller.php and loads the view test in /views/test.

Subcontrollers, in the controllers folder, are generally used for CRUD tasks, but can be called easily by using a task URL parameter. For example:

http://example.com/index.php?option=com_mycomponent&task=test.process

Will result in calling the process() function in /controllers/test.php - notice the task parameter is <controllerName>.<functionName>

You'll see this used a lot to do actions that don't need a view, e.g in com_content to publish / checkin / checkout / delete articles (where the task is article.publish etc.,which means the controller at controllers/article.php and the function publish(), and instead of a dedicated view the controller just redirects back to the list view).

For more information on how all the Joomla MVC parts fit together, see this wiki article.

Good luck!

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    Thanks for details explanation about sub controllers, the docs are really poor and confuse. Which took me long time to understand the concept of Joomla :(. – SonDang Jun 4 '15 at 2:45
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    It can be a little tricky, but it makes sense soon enough :) – codinghands Jun 4 '15 at 9:28
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Joomla MVC follows a naming convention to choose the file and class names.

This folder holds additional controllers, if needed by the application.

   /site/controllers/{controllername}.php
   This file holds the controller class {ComponentName}Controller{ControllerName}. This class must extend the base class JController.

You find more information in Joomla Docs, here

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  • Hi Anibal, thanks for the answer. But the docs are not clear to me. Suppose I have "/site/controllers/test.php" controller. In "/site/" I have "router.php" & "controller.php", how do I use test.php controller to render the view "test" :) ? – SonDang May 31 '15 at 9:24
  • Joomla MVC has a convention to load certain files and execute classes and function. That's the point of the whole MVC pattern. – Anibal May 31 '15 at 12:09
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If by all controllers you mean everything but controller.php, then placing them in that folder will work just fine. You call a specific controller with the task variable. For instance if you want to call the save method of the employer controller then you set the task to employer.save

I hope this helps. Happy Joomla!ng

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  • Hi Mathew, thanks for help. It's quite confuse with me, could you send me some demo please?? – SonDang May 31 '15 at 9:26
  • You can check how any core controller works, for example com_contact. – Anibal May 31 '15 at 12:06

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