Just out of curiosity I was wondering how everyone else sets up their pages.

Do you setup a new controller for every page and then actions for that page are within it's own controller or do you setup an index controller and then make an action for each new page?

Right now I have an index controller with an action for each new page and I'm thinking about switching to each page having it's own controller as I notice this is how Zend Framework is designed.

So how do you all do it?

I think its fair to say the layout of your application is for your own benefit, although having too many actions in one controller might be ineffecient especially if only a few are available to common visitors ( unauthenticated ).

Eg, if your application is only responsible for displaying information from an external source ( like an RSS feed ) then one controller and a handful of actions should suffice.

But as your application grows, perhaps you wish to allow registration/logins etc and permit certain users more control over the information displayed ,then it makes sense to begin seperating this logic in to appropriate controllers/modules.

This kind of query suggests you arn't too sure of the real scope of your application. You may find it helpful to sit down with a pen and paper and think over the various components of your app and how they relate to each other. Doing this at a later date could cause you more confusion than is needed.

The major reason for me switching is due to the fact that the website being built is a learning site for me. It's not really for my visitors. So I figured in order for me to fully be able to learn the approaches of OOP and Zend Framework that this change is needed. Just didn't know if that's how most people design their applications as well.

In general, I have a controller for each logical group of pages. For example, if I have an admin area I'll have an Admin controller that handles all the pages in the admin area. If the site is an ecommerce site I'll have a controller for the checkout process that operates behind SSL and another controller for the "shopping" pages that don't need to be behind SSL. One controller for the entire site is probably a bad idea unless it's a small site. But one controller per page is most likely overkill.

I am putting together an very in depth tutorial/screencast on how to install, organize, and develop a web application on top of the Zend Framework at TheWeb Lessons.com It will be a huge help for anyone wanting to get a comprehensive overview of some Zend Framework best practices. The lesson will include the source code for a fully functional web app, a screencast explaining everything, and a PDF book. If you sign up at the site I'll email you when the lesson is ready.

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In general, it's probably a good idea to start by thinking critically about your domain (cf domain-driven design, a great book), and think about page layout later.

In terms of using the ZF MVC architecture, I think the main advantage to grouping actions inside one controller is that you can use an action helper to add functionality to all actions inside the controller. For example: suppose you have an admin area within an otherwise public site. There's no need to check authentication/acl unless you're in the admin area, so the ideal way to implement this is by creating an action helper that's triggered by the preDispatch() hook.

In contrast, if your whole site's functionality differs when someone's logged in, for example, a forums website where the ability to comment is enabled/disabled, then you'd want to create a front controller plugin, which would check credentials for every action in every controller.

There are a couple good articles on these topics on DevZone.

Also, remember that one action != one page in general, since you can use partials to update only certain parts of the page, leaving other parts static. This is how you can do widgets in ZF

I chose others.

It just depends on the analisys you make (OO i might add, using UML probably).
I have one controller for each object, several actions for each cotroller (=object), and 1 or more outputs for each action, just depends on the logic.

So my suggestion is, model it right and you will get the answer.
Some objects might be controllers, others might be models (MVC speaking).