1. How to do it
2. How it works

I was wondering how to set-up the application parameters in the back-end to use them all around the application without the need of using the database and I came up with this solution, I hope it helps somebody else.

Note: The directory organization described follows this tutorial.

How to do it ¶

We will start with the model, so create protected/backend/models/ConfigForm.php as follows:

<?php
class ConfigForm extends CFormModel
{
    public $adminEmail;
    public $paramName;
    
    public function rules()
    {
        return array(
            array('adminEmail, paramName','required'),
        );
    }
}
?>

Now we will move on to the controller, so create protected/backend/controllers/ConfigController.php as follows:

<?php
class ConfigController extends Controller
{
    public function actionIndex()
    {
        $file = dirname(__FILE__).'../../../config/params.inc';
        $content = file_get_contents($file);
        $arr = unserialize(base64_decode($content));
        $model = new ConfigForm();
        $model->setAttributes($arr);
        
        if (isset($_POST['ConfigForm']))
        {
            $config = array(		
                'adminEmail'=>$_POST['ConfigForm']['adminEmail'],
                'paramName'=>$_POST['ConfigForm']['paramName'],
            );
            $str = base64_encode(serialize($config));
            file_put_contents($file, $str);
            Yii::app()->user->setFlash('config', Yii::t('app', 'Your new options have been saved.'));
            $model->setAttributes($config);
        }
        
        $this->render('index',array('model'=>$model));
    }
}
?>

Finally a view protected/backend/views/config/index.php

<div class="form">

<?php $form = $this->beginWidget('CActiveForm', array(
	'id' => 'config-form',
	'enableAjaxValidation' => false,
));
?>
    <h1><?php echo Yii::t('app', 'Options'); ?></h1>
    
    <?php if(Yii::app()->user->hasFlash('config')):?>
    <div class="info">
        <?php echo Yii::app()->user->getFlash('config'); ?>
    </div>
    <?php endif; ?>

    <p class="note">
        <?php echo Yii::t('app', 'Fields with'); ?> <span class="required">*</span> <?php echo Yii::t('app', 'are required'); ?>.
    </p>

    <?php echo $form->errorSummary($model); ?>

    <div class="row">
    <?php echo $form->labelEx($model,'adminEmail'); ?>
    <?php echo $form->textField($model, 'adminEmail'); ?>
    <?php echo $form->error($model,'adminEmail'); ?>
    </div><!-- row -->
    <div class="row">
    <?php echo $form->labelEx($model,'paramName'); ?>
    <?php echo $form->textField($model, 'paramName'); ?>
    <?php echo $form->error($model,'paramName'); ?>
    </div><!-- row -->
    <div class="row buttons">
    <?php echo CHtml::submitButton(Yii::t('app', 'Save')); ?>
    </div>

<?php $this->endWidget(); ?>
</div><!-- form -->

Now, we will create the following config files under protected/config:

• params.inc
• params.php

We need to change our protected/config/main.php as follows:

// application-level parameters that can be accessed
// using Yii::app()->params['paramName']
'params'=>require(dirname(__FILE__).'/params.php'),

And protected/config/params.php will contain:

<?php
$file = dirname(__FILE__).'/params.inc';
$content = file_get_contents($file);
$arr = unserialize(base64_decode($content));
return CMap::mergeArray(
        $arr,
        array(
            'salt'=>'P@bl0',
            'someOption'=>true,
        )
    )
;
?>

How it works ¶

You can add as many parameters as you want to the ConfigForm model. In the back-end the administrator will be able to change this parameters that will be serialized into a file and loaded into the front-end.

If you have static parameters, which doesn't need to be modified, you can add them to the protected/config/params.php file where they will be merged with all the others.

In protected/config/main.php the 'params' attribute is populated with an array of name/value pairs. These options are available at runtime via the Yii::app()->params['adminEmail'] hash, which is indexed by the parameter name.