Planet CakePHP

Just in case you’re not familiar with the basics, I suggest you read James Fairhurst’s and teknoid’s posts first. Good stuff but doesn’t work for Auth messages because you can’t specify parameters when Auth calls $this->Session->setFlash().
So I decided to ignore the phase where you set the flash message and hack the phase where the message is being printed. I created a custom helper and extended/overrode SessionHelper.

I basically took all code from SessionHelper->flash() up to where $layout is tested against ‘default’. Then I did my magic and called the parent or grand parent to do the real work.
/views/helpers/my_session.php

1. class MySessionHelper extends SessionHelper {
2.  
3.   function flash($key = ‘flash’) {
4.     if ($this->__active === true && $this->__start()) {
5.       $name = ‘Message.’ . $key;
6.       if (parent::check($name)) {
7.         $flash = parent::read($name);
8.  
9.         if ($flash[‘layout’] == ‘default’) {
10.           $flash[‘layout’] = ‘default_flash_message’;
11.           // change CakePHP default to your own default
12.  
13.           if (empty($flash[‘params’][‘id’])) {
14.             $flash[‘params’][‘id’] = $key.‘Message’;
15.           }
16.  
17.           CakeSession::write($name, $flash);
18.           // writing into session is prohibited in SessionHelper which is why I call its parent CakeSession
19.         }
20.         return parent::flash($key);
21.       }
22.     }
23.     return false;
24.   }
25. }

I bet you know how to enable your helper in the controller (e.g. AppController), just don’t forget to add ‘Session’ too:

1. var $helpers = array(‘Session’, ‘MySession’);

And here’s an example of the flash message layout (CakePHP 1.2). Notice that I refer to variable $id. I added it in my helper to mimic the original behaviour. Just as you’re used to you can access any variable that you set with $this->Session->setFlash() using the third argument. Also note that you can still choose a different layout using the second argument.
/views/layouts/default_flash_message.ctp

1. ">
2.  
3.   
4.      <?php echo $content_for_layout; ?>
5.   
6.  

And here’s what you put into your main layout to print your flash messages:

1. <?php $mySession->flash(); ?>
2. <?php $mySession->flash(‘auth’); ?>
3. <?php $mySession->flash(‘email’); ?>