Best way to create a custom dashboard view

I need to create a rather customized dashboard view.
Ideally this would be a tab that I would just code all the contents externally (it is just to 'display' data from various tables, modules, etc).

What would be the best way to do this?

Is there a way to create a custom tab (possibly via a cb plugin) so that I can just put that into a tab location in the dashboard?

Or should I do that with a CODE field (and have that the only item on that tab)?

Ideally I'd prefer to have my code in an external php file that gets called.

What would you say is the 'best' method to make this happen (preventing any potential CB upgrade problems, etc.)?

There is no dashboard view. We probably won't have such functionality until a later CB release like CB 3.0 when we add layout functionality. Basically you'd have the profile you see, the profile others see, and profile edit. Best way to have a dashboard now I guess is CB Conditional to show/hide various tabs based off who is looking at the profile. As for outputting your custom code yes you can use a CB Code Field and you can either add your code directly to it or just do an include of your code file (you can pass substitutions to your include using variables).

Sorry, I should have said the user profile view (we're just calling it the 'dashboard' here because that's the common term these days )

The code method should work fine; however, I've tried to use the include method, but I'm wondering if CB somehow does something with my include command or if there is some short-code to do an included within a code item.

I have:

But I'm getting an error "Call to undefined function doUpdateDisplay()"

Is there some 'trick' to doing an include_once within the code area? Or does my include file need to be located somewhere within the CB folder structure?

NOTE: I've tried also with JPATH_ROOT and JPATH_SITE with same results.

It's generating PHP from a string. Your Joomla defines of JPATH_BASE and DS are probably not available for usage and you'll need to use actual API calls. I also don't suggest trying to run a function like that (as probably won't work), but just have your include directly return whatever you're wanting. For example the below should work fine.


In your PHP file you'd then do a return. Have to keep in mind this isn't like just adding PHP to a file. It's generating anonymous functions and executing them. Also keep in mind CB Code Field is template driven. You could have a template file that handles all your code for you and just set it as the template for that code field.