Zend\Navigation does not work with Zend\Expressive

[RalfEggert]

I want to use Zend\Navigation in a Zend\Expressive application. First of all, I installed it:

composer require zendframework/zend-navigation

Composer installed it and added the ConfigProvider to my /config/config.php file:

$configManager = new ConfigManager(
    [
        Zend\I18n\ConfigProvider::class,
        Zend\Form\ConfigProvider::class,
        Zend\InputFilter\ConfigProvider::class,
        Zend\Hydrator\ConfigProvider::class,
        Zend\Session\ConfigProvider::class,
        TravelloViewHelper\ConfigProvider::class,
        new PhpFileProvider($pattern),
    ],
    $cachedConfigFile
);

When I try to use the navigation view helper in a template, I get this error:

A plugin by the name "navigation" was not found in the plugin manager Zend\View\HelperPluginManager

So, I added the Zend\Navigation\View\ViewHelperManagerDelegatorFactory to my configuration:

return [
    'dependencies' => [
        'delegators' => [
            Zend\View\HelperPluginManager::class => [
                Zend\Navigation\View\ViewHelperManagerDelegatorFactory::class,
            ],
        ],
    ],
];

No I get this error:

Unable to resolve service "Application" to a factory; are you certain you provided it during configuration?

After some investigation the problem is located here:

https://github.com/zendframework/zend-navigation/blob/master/src/Service/AbstractNavigationFactory.php#L102

The AbstractNavigationFactory seems to have a hard dependency on the MVC application which makes it impossible to use Zend\Navigation with Zend\Expressive currently.

Are there any plans to solve this? What should be done to break up this hard dependency? I guess it would be quite complicated to run Zend\Navigation both with Zend\Mvc and Zend\Expressive, wouldn't it?

[RalfEggert]

I also found out, that Zend\Navigation still refers to Zend\Mvc\Router in two places:

• https://github.com/zendframework/zend-navigation/blob/master/src/Service/AbstractNavigationFactory.php#L16
• https://github.com/zendframework/zend-navigation/blob/master/src/Page/Mvc.php#L12

[froschdesign]

I also found out, that Zend\Navigation still refers to Zend\Mvc\Router in two places:

Right. At the moment, the navigation component supports the old router of the mvc component and the new router component:

use Zend\Mvc\Router as MvcRouter;
use Zend\Router\RouteMatch;
use Zend\Router\RouteStackInterface;

But I think this is not the problem. Please have a look at Zend\Navigation\Service\AbstractNavigationFactory::preparePages():

$application = $container->get('Application');
$routeMatch  = $application->getMvcEvent()->getRouteMatch();
$router      = $application->getMvcEvent()->getRouter();
$request     = $application->getMvcEvent()->getRequest();

This matches the error message you posted. And this is the problem!

Are there any plans to solve this?

Sure! 😃

I guess it would be quite complicated to run Zend\Navigation both with Zend\Mvc and Zend\Expressive, wouldn't it?

zend-navigation must run without zend-mvc.

[RalfEggert]

zend-navigation must run without zend-mvc.

Yep.

Currently Zend\Navigation depends on the Zend\Mvc\Application to access the Zend\Mvc\MvcEvent to access the RouteMatch, Router and Request objects. And its Zend\Navigation\Page\Mvc depends on the Zend\Router. So MVC is quite depply integrated.

To split this up we might need some integration components for Zend\Mvc and Zend\Expressive. Similar to the Zend\Mvc\I18n and packages. Sounds like a lot of work...

[froschdesign]

Currently Zend\Navigation depends on the Zend\Mvc\Application to access the Zend\Mvc\MvcEvent to access the RouteMatch, Router and Request objects.

Right, but only in the current factories!

And its Zend\Navigation\Page\Mvc depends on the Zend\Router. So MVC is quite depply integrated.

Yes and no! 😉
The Zend\Navigation\Page\Mvc depends on zend-router, not zend-mvc!
And zend-router is optional for the entire navigation component.

[tobias-trozowski]

Currently Zend\Navigation depends on the Zend\Mvc\Application to access the Zend\Mvc\MvcEvent to access the RouteMatch, Router and Request objects.

Right, but only in the current factories!

Nope :)
Have a look into Zend\Navigation\Page\Uri::isActive and Zend\Navigation\Page\Mvc::isActive.
The whole "isActive-Strategy" currently depends on a existing RouteMatch or - in case of Page\Uri - the Request object (nope, not the Psr\Http\Message\ServerRequestInterface, it's Zend\Http\Request).
And AFAIK both - RouteMatch and Request - is not available outside the middleware chain.

I really tried to find a better way but for now thats what works for me. At least with the Page\Mvc.

/**
 * @param ContainerInterface $container
 * @param array|\Zend\Config\Config $pages
 * @return null|array
 * @throws \Zend\Navigation\Exception\InvalidArgumentException
 */
protected function preparePages(ContainerInterface $container, $pages)
{
    /** @var RouterInterface $router */
    $router = $container->get(RouterInterface::class);
    // mah... it's ugly, i know
    $request = ServerRequestFactory::fromGlobals();
    $routeMatch = $router->match($request);

    // HTTP request is the only one that may be injected
    if (! $request instanceof Request) {
        $request = null;
    }

    return $this->injectComponents($pages, $routeMatch, $router, $request);
}

[froschdesign]

Nope :)

Please read carefully, because the content of Ralf's message was different:

Currently Zend\Navigation depends on the Zend\Mvc\Application…

Zend\Mvc is only used in the factories! 😃
Without the current factories you can use the mvc page only with zend-router. No need for the mvc component.

The whole "isActive-Strategy" currently depends on a existing RouteMatch or - in case of Page\Uri - the Request object.

The same here: the mvc component is not needed.

And AFAIK both - RouteMatch and Request - is not available outside the middleware chain.

Right, but that was not the content of Ralf's message.

---

$routeMatch = $router->match($request);

This creates a Zend\Expressive\Router\RouteResult, but the original injectComponents methods needs an object of Zend\Router\RouteMatch?!

[tobias-trozowski]

And yep, the match method will create a Zend\Expressive\Router\RouteResult. I had to overwrite the injectComponents too.

Didn't expect that zend-expressive have own implementation for the routing. I supposed zend-expressive uses zend-router.

[weierophinney]

Didn't expect that zend-expressive have own implementation for the routing. I supposed zend-expressive uses zend-router.

We developed an abstraction around routing, to allow usage of any routing library, and provide three implementations: Aura.Route, FastRoute, and zend-router; FastRoute is the recommended router!

Thanks for opening this issue; clearly, we need to see if we can make it a bit more generic going forward!

[Sohorev]

When you plan to fix the bug? I need to understand whether or not to wait for the decision or to use something else for menu.

[froschdesign]

@Sohorev

…fix the bug?

This is not a bug, because zend-navigation was never designed and developed to use different types of router.
Now we have to implement this new way.

When? I will look into over the weekend.

[RalfEggert]

@froschdesign that will be really great!

[froschdesign]

@RalfEggert and @weierophinney
I have created a first simple test: froschdesign@02190ac

I wanted an implementation for version 2 of zend-navigation. Therefore, the test includes only new files and no changes in existing files.

(Notice: at the moment there is no support for multiple navigations)

Usage

dependencies.global.php

'dependencies' => [
    'factories'  => [
        Zend\Navigation\Navigation::class => Zend\Navigation\Service\ExpressiveNavigationFactory::class,
    ],
    'delegators' => [
        Zend\View\HelperPluginManager::class => [
            Zend\Navigation\View\ViewHelperManagerDelegatorFactory::class,
        ],
    ],
],

middleware-pipeline.global.php

'dependencies' => [
    'factories' => [
        Zend\Navigation\Middleware\NavigationMiddleware::class => Zend\Navigation\Middleware\NavigationMiddlewareFactory::class,
    ],
],
'middleware_pipeline' => [
    'routing' => [
        'middleware' => [
            ApplicationFactory::ROUTING_MIDDLEWARE,
            Zend\Navigation\Middleware\NavigationMiddleware::class,
            ApplicationFactory::DISPATCH_MIDDLEWARE,
        ],
    ],
],

Add a configuration for the navigation itself:

navigation.global.php

return [
    'navigation' => [
        'default' => [
            [
                'label' => 'Home',
                'route' => 'home',
            ],
            [
                'label'  => 'Add album',
                'route'  => 'album',
                'params' => [
                    'action' => 'add',
                ],
            ],
            [
                'label'  => 'Edit album',
                'route'  => 'album',
                'params' => [
                    'action' => 'edit',
                ],
            ],
        ],
    ],
];

[RalfEggert]

This looks great. Having an additional ExpressivePage might make it easy to adopt this. It is really a pain that I cannot use Zend\Navigation properly with Zend\Expressive. This will definitely help.

In the long run we should make Zend\Navigation independent from the MVC router if possible although I understand that it will be a lot of work.

👍 👍 👍