How does Zend/XF do MVC?

[Razasharp]

I think I am getting a bit confused.

What I'm used to is creating an action in a controller, and setting up the variables for that action.

Those variables can them be passed down into templates (partials) inside that action. If an object in a collection requires further associated variables/objects, these can be set up in helpers.

Is this how XF/Zend does things too? If I want to get some info from the xf_forum table, to show on the forum home page (for the 'last post' info ) what would be the best way to go about it?

Looking at the indexAction in Forum.php (controller) I see this:

		$viewParams = array(
			'nodeList' => $this->_getNodeModel()->getNodeDataForListDisplay(false, 0),
			'onlineUsers' => $this->_getSessionActivityList(),
			'boardTotals' => $this->_getBoardTotals()
		);

And it seems I need the first line, which points to the class XenForo_Model_Node extends XenForo_Model. But I'm not really sure where to go from there.

Any ideas? Or tips in general to understand the XF/Zend way? How would I get data that is stored in the xf_forum table to be made available in the correct views?

(I've been through some PHP tuts and XF dev tuts, but still feel a little lost - sorry for posting so many questions).

 

[Razasharp]

Thanks for the reply and snippet @AndyB it's very helpful seeing code doing similar.

I think I am just finding it hard to find my way around XF/Zend :/ or maybe I am just expecting to know too much too soon. I'll try and go through more tuts and see how I get on.

Thanks for your help.