Zend framework - access controller or model from the view

I need to give the front-end designer the开发者_开发知识库 ability to choose whether or not to display a single xml feed or an mash-up, from the view.phtml file

This means I need to be able to call a method from the controller or model which then returns a variable to the view containing the requested feed(s).

So how do I access methods of the controller or model from the view?

you don't call controller methods in view , but you can create an instance of model (for read only purposes) inside view and then call its public methods .eg

Foo.phtml

<?php $feedsTb = new Default_Model_Feeds() ?>
<?php $allFeeds = $feedsTb->fetchAll(); ?>

I don't know if i got your problem right, but this is something i'd probably do in a way like Controller:

if($this->_getParam('single')) {
  $this->view->data = $model->getFeedSingleData();
  $this->render('single_feed.phtml');
} else { //mashup
  $this->view->data = $model->getMashUpData();
  $this-render('mashup_feed.phtml');
}

Though admittedly an example like this is better off with two different actions (singleAction() and mashupAction())

But i really don't know if i got your problem figured out at all :S You may explain it further