Hi
I’m David and I’m from Portugal.
I’m a PHP programmer but I’m a newbie with Yii. I started to use Yii about 2 months ago and I had a hard time to understand all the potential of Yii.
Because I was used to program all from the begginning (without a framework), now it is hard to me to do simple things that in the past I took only 5 minutes to do. Now, sometimes, I take 2 hours just to find that exists another property that I have to give a value to make it works.
For example:
I have a form that has a field that I didn’t have any rule to apply. All the fields that are “required” were working, but that field that I didn’t want to require didn’t work. I almost make it “required” just to get it to work, but if I am using a top class framework, the idea is to do things “by the book” and with no workarounds. So, I spent a lot of time to find the reason for that doesn’t work and finally I found the property “safe”.
All this just to say that it is hard to find many things in Yii documentation.
For example, how can I find all the properties that I can use on fields of CActiveForm, starting on the page of CActiveForm (http://www.yiiframework.com/doc/api/1.1/CActiveForm)? Starting on this page, how many clicks do I have to do to get one page with all that properties of rules (safe, unsafe, required, compare, email, etc)?
now that I already made my complaints 
, the real big question (probably another one with a simple answer but I can’t find that answer).
I am working on a multi-language site, with all the words, phrases and sentences of each language being on a database. I have this working well, but with many workarounds. The problem is I can’t find a file where I can’t put the code to access to that table, copy that the values of the fields to a variable and that variable to be known in “all” files of Yii.
The code that I’m using is this:
<?php
$myLang="";
$is_cookie = !empty(Yii::app()->request->cookies['cookieLang']->value);
if(isset($_POST['Language']['chooseLanguage'])){
$myLang = $_POST['Language']['chooseLanguage'];
}else{
if($is_cookie){
$myLang = Yii::app()->request->cookies['cookieLang']->value;
}
}
$connection=Yii::app()->db;
if($myLang==""){
$sql = "SELECT * FROM miscelanea LIMIT 0,1";
}else{
$sql = "SELECT * FROM miscelanea WHERE idLingua='$myLang'";
}
$command=$connection->createCommand($sql);
$dataReader=$command->query();
foreach($dataReader as $row) {
$dataLang = $row;
}
?>
The problem is, even that I put this code on main.php or index.php or column1.php, that variable $dataLang is not seen on my "view files", or on "controller files", or on "model files". My workaround was to put this code in all these files where I need it.
I know that this is bad, awful coding, but I can’t find a way that my variable $dataLang to be known on all files.
Worst, the example that I refered about CActiveForm was a hidden field that I sent by _POST to SiteController.php with a localized string to be passed to setFlash, just because I can’t find a way to access to my variable $dataLang.
View File
<?php $form=$this->beginWidget('CActiveForm'); ?>
<p class="note"><?php echo $dataLang['campos_obrigatorios_1']; ?> <span class="required">*</span> <?php echo $dataLang['campos_obrigatorios_2']; ?></p>
<?php echo $form->errorSummary($model); ?>
<div class="row">
<?php echo $form->labelEx($model,$dataLang['Nome']); ?>
<?php echo $form->textField($model,'nome'); ?>
</div>
<div class="row">
<?php echo $form->labelEx($model,$dataLang['Email']); ?>
<?php echo $form->textField($model,'email'); ?>
<?php echo $form->hiddenField($model,'NewsletterInscrito', array('value'=>$dataLang['newsletter_ok'])); ?>
</div>
<div class="row buttons">
<?php echo CHtml::resetButton($dataLang['Limpar'],array('id'=>'resetButton')); ?>
<?php echo CHtml::submitButton($dataLang['Enviar'],array('id'=>'submitButton')); ?>
</div>
<?php $this->endWidget(); ?>
Model File
class ReceberNewsletter extends CFormModel
{
public $nome;
public $email;
public $NewsletterInscrito;
/**
* Declares the validation rules.
*/
public function rules()
{
return array(
// NewsletterInscrito não precisa de regras
array('NewsletterInscrito', 'safe'),
// name, email are required
array('nome, email, NewsletterInscrito', 'required'),
// email has to be a valid email address
array('email', 'email'),
// verifyCode needs to be entered correctly
// array('verifyCode', 'captcha', 'allowEmpty'=>!CCaptcha::checkRequirements()),
);
}
}
Controller File
public function actionReceber_Newsletter()
{
$model=new ReceberNewsletter;
if(isset($_POST['ReceberNewsletter']))
{
$model->attributes=$_POST['ReceberNewsletter'];
if($model->validate())
{
$headers="From: {$model->email}\r\nReply-To: {$model->email} Subject: Subscrever Newsletter";
$myMensagem = "Nome:{$model->nome}\neMail:{$model->email}\n";
mail(Yii::app()->params['adminEmail'],'Subscrever Newsletter',$myMensagem,$headers);
Yii::app()->user->setFlash('receber_newsletter',$model->NewsletterInscrito);
$this->refresh();
}
}
$this->render('receber-newsletter',array('model'=>$model));
}
As you can see, “NewsletterInscrito” field is just a hidden field to send a localized string to setFlash. I did this awful workaround because in the Controller File I can’t access to my variable $dataLang.
Any help, please.
P.S.: This will be the topic where I will put all my questions. Be careful. This topic will grow fast. 
P.S.2: Sorry about my english. Without much practice on a daily basis it is hard to find the correct build of sentences or the right words.
