You can create a helper in the application/helper/ folder e.g. /application/helper/myfunction_helper.php (include _helper or it wont work), then you can either load the helper in each file using $this->load->helper('myfunction'); as you already know. But you can also autoload it by adding it to the helper autoload array in application/config/autoload.php

CodeIgniter has a nice template parser, but it aint perfect imo :)

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Nunchaku! Who doesn't like martial arts? =)