PHP | cakePHP: Static page handling tips

You can create static pages in cakePHP by adding .ctp files under /app/views/pages folder and can access it using the URI http://sitename/pages/pagename.ctp.

Try creating two files page1.ctp and page2.ctp and add those files under /app/views/pages folder.

page1.ctp

<h1>Page 1</h1>
<p>Static Content for page 1 goes here</p>

page2.ctp

<h1>Page 1</h1>
<p>Static Content for page 1 goes here</p>

Depending on certain conditions, if you want to determine the layouts navigation panels or display/hide certain layers in the layout, you can do this by copying the pages_controller.php from /cake/libs/controller/pages_controller.php to /app/controllers/ and then modify the display() method by checking the value of the passed parameters.

function display(){
......
......

$display_page = $this->params['pass'][0];
switch($display_page){
  case "page1":
        $this->layout('my_layout_1');
        break;
  case "page2":
        $this->layout('my_layout_2');
        break;
   .......
}
......
}

By copying the pages_controller.php to /app/controller/ directory you have the possibility to add some helpers through which you modify the output rendered to the static pages.

You can also handle it in the /app/app_controller.php (you need to move the app_controller.php file from /cake/libs/controller folder to /app/ folder).