Zend FrameWork - Form input from Layout to Controller

Question

I have a small form, where user's can Subscribe to my newsletter. How can i pass the email address from my Layout to my Controller?

My Layout name is Footer.phtml, here's the code:

<div id="subscribe">

<form name="newsletterRegister" method="post" action="">
<span>Subscribe to the Newsletter</span>
<input class="subscribeNewsletter" name="email" type="text">
<input id="subscribe_ok" type="image" src="/www/assets/newImages/footer/Ok.png" value="">
</form>

</div>

I have a controller called NewsletterController.php

I'm kinda lost with Zend Framework, can anyone help me figuring out what i have to do??

Answer 1

Well change this

<form name="newsletterRegister" method="post" action="">

To this

<form name="newsletterRegister" method="post" action="NewsletterController/YOURACTION">

And in your controller just get the data like this

$request = $this->getRequest();
$request->getPost()

Answer 2

If the action of your form is empty, it will post to itself.

But maybe you dont want to check on every page if the newsletter is send.

Try using a Controller Plugin , check the request object for the input field, name it unique like email_newsletter , if is not empty, do your logic.

File: application/plugins/Newsletter.php

class Application_Plugin_Newsletter extends Zend_Controller_Plugin_Abstract {

    //before dispatching starts
    public function preDispatch(Zend_Controller_Request_Abstract $request) {
        $email = $request->getParam('email_newsletter',NULL);
        if(!is_null($mail)) {
            //check if is valid
            if(Zend_Validate::is($email,'')) {
                //do your logic
            }
            else {
                //set some error messages
                //maybe use helper flashMessenger
            }
        }
    }
}

File: Bootrap.php

protected function _initPlugins() {
    $this->bootstrap('frontController');

    //Get FrontController Instance
    $frontController = $this->getResource('frontController');

    $frontController->registerPlugin(new Application_Plugin_Newsletter());

    return $frontController;
}

OR

Set a form action like '/newsletter/subscribe'. Then in controller 'newsletter' action 'subscribe' check the form and redirect to the sending page.

Maybe you should store sth like a last page visited to the session, or add a hidden input to that newsletter form, representing the current page you want to redirect to after the newsletter subscription is done.