Comment component

The component handles comments submitted to the same application action that displays the record. Use this when you want to keep the form and its redirect on your own controller.

Load it for a view action

In your controller's existing initialize() method:

$this->loadComponent('Comments.Comment', [
    'actions' => ['view'],
]);

Load the entity and set it as a view variable in your view() action:

$post = $this->fetchTable('Posts')->get($id);
$this->set(compact('post'));

The component attaches Comments.Commentable to the controller's default table during startup. The default view variable is the singular entity class name, such as post. Use viewVariable when your action uses another variable name:

$this->loadComponent('Comments.Comment', [
    'actions' => ['view'],
    'viewVariable' => 'article',
]);

Your action must expose the entity before rendering. The component processes submissions during beforeRender by default. Configuring on to startup requires the entity to be available earlier, before the action runs.

Render a form and list

In the view template:

<?= $this->Form->create(null) ?>
<?= $this->Form->control('content', ['type' => 'textarea']) ?>
<?= $this->Form->button(__('Add comment')) ?>
<?= $this->Form->end() ?>

<?php foreach ($commentsData as $comment): ?>
    <p><?= nl2br(h($comment->content)) ?></p>
<?php endforeach; ?>
<?= $this->Paginator->numbers() ?>

Only POST, PUT, and PATCH requests can create a comment. Successful submissions redirect to the current route, including its passed arguments. The component accepts comment or content as the form field. A failed save leaves the page available and sets an error flash message; render flash messages in your layout. It enforces allowAnonymous and takes the target ID from the entity by default. Keep useEntity enabled; disabling it lets the component use the submitted id, so your application must validate access to that record.

commentsData contains paginated comments restricted to the configured stored model identifier and record ID. Only flat display is implemented by the component. Its default query does not filter private or spam comments.

Customize callbacks

Controller methods named callbackCommentsInitType(), callbackCommentsView(), callbackCommentsFetchDataFlat(), and callbackCommentsPrepareParams() override the corresponding component callbacks. For example, add visibility restrictions in your controller:

public function callbackCommentsFetchDataFlat(array $options): \Cake\Datasource\Paging\PaginatedInterface {
    $comments = $this->fetchTable('Comments.Comments');
    $query = $comments->find()->where([
        $comments->aliasField('model') => 'Posts',
        $comments->aliasField('foreign_key') => $options['id'],
        $comments->aliasField('is_private') => false,
        $comments->aliasField('is_spam') => false,
    ]);

    return $this->paginate($query);
}

Adapt the table alias to your controller. An empty parent_id creates a top-level comment. A parent ID must be a positive integer or integer string and belong to the same model and record. Malformed IDs receive a 400 response. A well-formed ID that does not identify a parent on the same model and record receives a 405; the separate public controller always creates top-level comments.

AJAX

AJAX requests set ajaxMode and a redirect view variable instead of returning a normal redirect. The component does not provide a JavaScript client or JSON response serializer. Your application must render and handle the response. Use normal form submission for the first setup.