Cakephp - how to make error pages have its own layouts?

Question

I wanna have a different layout for the page not found 404 page. How can i set a different layout for that page?

Answer 1

My solution for CakePHP 2.3

Change the ExceptionRenderer in core.php to use your own renderer.

app/Config/core.php:

Configure::write('Exception', array(
  'handler' => 'ErrorHandler::handleException',
  'renderer' => 'MyExceptionRenderer',
  'log' => true
));

app/Lib/Error/MyExceptionRenderer.php:

 App::uses('ExceptionRenderer', 'Error');

 class MyExceptionRenderer extends ExceptionRenderer 
 {
    /**
     * Overrided, to always use a bare controller.
     * 
     * @param Exception $exception The exception to get a controller for.
     * @return Controller
     */
    protected function _getController($exception) {
        if (!$request = Router::getRequest(true)) {
            $request = new CakeRequest();
        }
        $response = new CakeResponse(array('charset' => Configure::read('App.encoding')));
        $controller = new Controller($request, $response);
        $controller->viewPath = 'Errors';
        $controller->layout = 'error';
        return $controller;
    }
 }

The advantage to this approach is that it ensures any exceptions thrown from AppController don't cause an endless loop when rendering the exception. Forces a basic rendering of the exception message every time.