How is the «use_force» argument used for the «store.links» block?

dmitry_fedyuk · November 28, 2016, 6:08pm

The «use_force» argument is used only in the single place:

magento/magento2/blob/2.1.2/app/code/Magento/Theme/view/frontend/layout/default.xml#L71-L77


<block class="Magento\Framework\View\Element\Text" name="store.links" group="navigation-sections">
    <arguments>
        <argument name="title" translate="true" xsi:type="string">Account</argument>
        <argument name="use_force" xsi:type="boolean">true</argument>
        <argument name="text" xsi:type="string"><![CDATA[<!-- Account links -->]]></argument>
    </arguments>
</block>

It is handled here:

github.com

magento/magento2/blob/2.1.2/app/code/Magento/Theme/view/frontend/templates/html/sections.phtml#L26-L29


$html = $layout->renderElement($name);
if (!trim($html) && ($block->getUseForce() != true)) {
    continue;
}

So it allows to preserve a section in a «hamburger» menu even if the section is empty.
The store.links section is intentionally empty during a layout rendering, because it will get contents by the following JavaScript code:

github.com

magento/magento2/blob/2.1.2/app/design/frontend/Magento/blank/web/js/theme.js#L26-L26


$('.panel.header > .header.links').clone().appendTo('#store\\.links');

So its contens is cloned from the «header.links» block.