[eluser]drewbee[/eluser]
I think your problem is the fact that the views output is ran before __destruct() happens.
You will have to force Code Igniter to not use its own output, and rather force it out on your own. I know how to output code igniters current setup, however telling it not to output its own data is a mess regardless.
Code:
function __destruct()
{
$this->load->view('common/footer');
echo $this->output->get_output();
die();
}
Why not load the footer view within the links/hot.
This way you are not calling this in your controller, but the view ie
links/hot.php (view)
Code:
echo $this->load->view('header', TRUE);
echo 'this is my hot links view';
echo $this->load->view('footer', TRUE);
I am not sure if that will work or not, but that would be my best method for doing this.
Personally, I just create one global_view file.