How to load a partial view into a normal view via AJAX?

Question

I'm making an AJAX call to my JController and would like to send back a 'partial' view for display within the existing page, populated with some data.

Is it possible to load a file from <view>/tmpl/, inject data into it and store the resulting snippet?

I'm thinking I need to do something like:

controller.php (in action method)

$view = $this->getView('MyView', 'results'); // loads view.results.php
$view->assignRef('data', $response); // assign data
$storedView = $view->display(); // store the view

view.results.php

function display($tpl = null){
    return $this->loadTemplate('results'); // loads '/<view>/tmpl/default_results.php'
}

EDIT

I've edited the earlier incorrect code above to what seems to be working.

Is this best practice for this particular use case? Would it be considered bad form to simply add a new method to the existing view.html.php that returns the loaded template?

Answer 1

Your URL for the partial view / task needs to look like this:

index.php?option=com_example&view=partial&format=raw

You can also create a new method in the controller, if needed. Make sure that the default display() method is not overridden in a way that hinders the setting of a different view.

Now create the following files:

JROOT/components/com_example/views/partial/view.raw.php

<?php
defined('_JEXEC') or die;

class ExampleViewPartial extends JViewLegacy
{
    function display($tpl = null)
    {
        // Get the data needed for the view ...

        // Call parent
        parent::display($tpl);
    }

}

JROOT/components/com_example/views/partial/tmpl/default.php

<?php
echo 'Hello partial world!';