Kia ora, bros! :)

I'm writing a kind of »order management«/crm-system where a shop owner can add an order (via ModelAdmin). This order is an extended DatObject where I added several fields.
When creating a new order (and an unique order id is generated) I want to have some kind of »print button« right beside the Back/Delete/Save-Buttons. I guess Aram's tutorial (http://www.ssbits.com/tutorials/2009/adding-a-cms-action-the-slightly-hacky-way/) will do the job.

Now for the tricky part: What is the best method for generating the print view? I want to print an order receipt with the data added before, in a nice layout and some (generated) images (for example a QR Code built with the Google Charts API) and of course the data. I could build a separate HTML-Page for the print layout – but how would I dynamically generate that page in a pop-up window?

Can someone help me with a »strategy« or a hint, how to achieve this functionality? Would be great to hear from you guys!

Kind regards from Germany,

Marc

Hi Marc,

currently i'm working on a similar project.
My first (good looking) approach is as follows:

Add a "print" Link to the detail view of your "Order" inside ModelAmin:

class Order extends DataObject {
...
function getCMSFields($params = null) {
  $f = parent::getCMSFields($params);
  $f->push(
                new LiteralField('i_print', sprintf('<p><a href="%s" target="_blank">Print</a></p>', 
                        Controller::join_links( Controller::curr()->Link(), 'doPrint'))
                        // generates admin/<modeladmin-url-segment>/Order/<ID>/doPrint
                        )
                ));
    return $f;
}
...
}

Next, in your ModelAdmin set a custom Record-Controller to define the 'doPrint' action:

class OrderAdmin extends ModelAdmin{
  ...
  public static $record_controller_class = 'OrderAdmin_RecordController';    
  ...
}

class OrderAdmin_RecordController extends ModelAdmin_RecordController {
    
    function doPrint($request) {
        return $this->customise( array('Order'=>$this->getCurrentRecord()) )->renderWith( array('Print') );
    }
    
}

And create a Print.ss in a 'templates' directory inside the module, where your OrderAdmin.php exists
My structure:

mysite/code/OrderAdmin.php
mysite/templates/Print.ss

Print.ss

<% control Order %>
<h1>Print View for Order No. {$ID}</h1>
<% end_control %>

So far, so good .....
Currently kind of dirty - but i will work on it ....
Does this help/work ?

Greetings from southern germany :-)
Rob

Hey Rob!

Thanks a lot for your reply! No matter if it's dirty or not. :) I'll definitive give this a try this weekend and I'll let you know if it works out!

Thanks again und beste Grüße aus dem Ruhrgebiet! ;-)

Marc

just one notice

you need to clear the Requirements (css,js). Otherwise all the modeladmin css & js - files are included in your print template:

function doPrint($request) {
Requirements:clear();
return $this->customise( array('Order'=>$this->getCurrentRecord()) )->renderWith( array('Print') );
} 

Rob! Thank you very much, your code works like a charm. I'm not an PHP-expert therefore I don't know whether your code is »dirty« or not. The main point is: it suits my needs perfectly and I can understand the principles behind it! :)

Just a small typo in your last post where an additional colon is needed: it should read

Requirements::clear();

Again, thank you very much for your help!

Viele Grüße,

Marc