Magento extension display error and redirect from within model not controller

Question

If an error occurs within the model of my extension I want to display a helpful error message to the site user but allow them to continue using the store.

I've written a custom component that uses a third party remote API. Sometimes errors occur within the API and I want to be able to handle them gracefully. I've read the following article about generating errors warnings and notices here http://www.deepcodeonline.com/blog/magento/how-to-display-error-success-and-notice-messages-in-magento.

I can get it to work when the addError or addNotice methods are called from the controller code, but I want to call them from the model, because its only in the model that I know an error's occurred.

Answer 1

You can just call those functions from the Model without any problem. They are saved in the session, so the next time a messages-block is showed they will be displayed to the user (so basically on the next page that is shown).