layout-view-discovery.md

Layout/View Discovery

The default order of overrides ColdBox offers is both viewParentLookup & layoutParentLookup to true. This means that if the layout or view requested to be rendered by a module exists in the overrides section of the host application, then the host application's layout or view will be rendered instead. Let's investigate the order of discover:

viewParentLookup = true

1. Host override module specific (e.g. {HOST}/views/modules/myModule/myView.cfm)
2. Host override common (e.g. {HOST}/views/modules/myView.cfm)
3. Module view (e.g. /modules/myModule/views/myView.cfm)
4. Default view discovery from host (e.g. {HOST}/views/myView.cfm)

viewParentLookup = false

1. Module view (e.g. /modules/myModule/views/myView.cfm)
2. Host override module specific (e.g. {HOST}/views/modules/myModule/myView.cfm)
3. Host override common (e.g. {HOST}/views/modules/myView.cfm)
4. Default view discovery from host (e.g. {HOST}/views/myView.cfm)

layoutParentLookup = true

1. Host override module specific (e.g. {HOST}/layouts/modules/myModule/myLayout.cfm)
2. Host override common (e.g. {HOST}/layouts/modules/myLayout.cfm)
3. Module layout (e.g. /modules/myModule/layouts/myLayout.cfm)
4. Default layout discovery from host (e.g. {HOST}/layouts/Default.cfm)

layoutParentLookup = false 1. Module layout (e.g. /modules/myModule/layouts/myLayouts.cfm) 2. Host override module specific (e.g. {HOST}/layouts/modules/myModule/myLayout.cfm) 3. Host override common (e.g. {HOST}/layouts/modules/myLayout.cfm) 4. Default layout discovery from host (e.g. {HOST}/layouts/Default.cfm)

Let's do some real examples, I am building a simple module with 1 layout and 1 view. Here is my directory structure for them:

/simpleModule
  + layouts
    + main.cfm
  + views
    + simple
       + index.cfm

Now, in my handler code I just want to render the view by using our typical event.setView() method calls or implicit views.

// In a handler called simple.cfc
component{

  function index(event){
      // DO SOME CODE HERE

        // Set the view to render with a layout
      event.setView(view='simple/index',layout="main");
    }
}