Help with CI, PHP & Javscript

[eluser]boltsabre[/eluser]
It's okay, it's a really nice helpful community here. We all had to start somewhere, and we've all had to ask questions (which I still do here on the forum on a regular enough basis).

Anyway, I cannot give an in depth answer, about to head out with the missus to watch some fireworks, but I'll give it a try.

Depending on you needs/requirements there are several ways you could populate the main content. But this one should do the trick for you! I'm assuming you already have your model function pulling your LHS list and another model function pulling the 'main contents', and that you have a controller which is loading a view and that you already have this view displaying your LHS list using a foreach loop?

In which case, you can just make an link/anchor in this foreach loop, and point it straight back to the same controller, but pass the $id in with it. You'll need to check in your controller if this $id is being passed to it, so that it knows if to make a call to the model to get the main contents. So you're controller will need to now look like this:

Code:

public function thisIsYourContollerFunction($id = null)
   //stuff you already have in here to get you LHS list
   // already being passed to view using the $data variable

   // if $id is passed, make call to model and get main contents and pass to view in $data
   if($id != null){
      $data[mainContents] = $this->modelName->getMainContent($id);
   }
   $this->load->view('yourView', $data);

Simple, now you have a check in your controller, and your only getting your main data if you pass the variable $id to it.

So in your view, in your foreach loop to make the LHS list, just make an anchor as pass $id to it.

Code:

foreach $lhsList as $list){
   echo anchor('contollerName/thisIsYourContollerFunction/'.$id, Whatever you want here to display);
}

And in your 'main area just run a check to see if there is main contents to display

Code:

if ($mainContents){
echo out your main contents
}else{
display generic stuff when there is no main contents
}