从另一个URL向Joomla模块传递值

Question

I'm newbie to Joomla module development, and would like to implement a custom module for Joomla CMS.

I need to display the sales history of the logged in user. For example, a user with [username] = "US001" logged in successfully, and go to view what sales orders have done by him. And the module display the data recordset in table format by passing the "US001" as username parameter to my database and retrieve the data.

1. How do I detect the user logged in and then remember the [username] for the whole session?
   
2. How can I pass this [username] parameter, eg "US001" to my external URL for retrieving data record set? My database for every user's sales history is in another different IP's server.
   
3. After query the data, how to return back my dataset to the module and draw my table out on that module?
   
4. Additional function would be Admin's user able to control which field to be display, eg. 'age', 'e-mail', etc on the table in module.

Answer 1

You want to access the user object. Joomla already has most of what you need built in, you just pull up the current user and you have the info.

To start with, you will need to get the current user info -

`$user =& JFactory::getUser();`

1. if ($user->guest) will tell you if the user is logged in, $user->name will give you the username
2. You will have to pass any info from Joomla to the external URL using either GET or POST. Easiest way is to pass it as part of the URL query string (GET) external.url.com/database-page.html?username=name; ?> or similar
3. Again, GET or POST the values you want to use back to the page containing your module.
4. Not sure what you mean here, but it sounds like you need to add parameters (called form fields in 1.6 and newer) to your module so you can turn on or off the display of some of the data the module will be getting.

User object tutorial - http://docs.joomla.org/Accessing_the_current_user_object Parameters - http://docs.joomla.org/Standard_parameter_types Form fields - http://docs.joomla.org/Form_field

Lastly, it sounds like you would be better served creating a component instead of a module, unless you plan to display the database info you are pulling as part of another page that will be displaying the main content.