[Request tutorial] Template class - Page 2

Tanax · 10-24-2007, 07:44 PM

Well, I can't give you any other example than the template engine that vBulletin has, it's awesome.
And I know I can use smarty or savant.

But I want to code it myself, and be able to feel that I've done the template engine myself(with your help), other than using a free script.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karl

I actually wrote a class to do this exact same thing yesteday. Essentially though, it's simply a template within a template. The outter template provides the layout, such as:

PHP Code:


			
<html>

<head>

<title>$pageTitle</title>

</head>

<body>

$pageContent

</body>

</html>

You then render your inner template (I call them Views - from an MVC pattern), store it in a string and push it to the layout as $pageContent. I will wrire up a tutorial for a simplified version of this soon, however it wont be for a few days as I am currently busy with other things :(

Do you run this with if statements aswell?

PHP Code:


			
<html>

<head>

<title>$title</title>

</head>

<body>

<if condition="$logged">

Welcome $userinfo[name]!

Your last visit was: $userinfo[lastvisit].

</if>

<else>

Welcome guest! Please login or register.

</else>

</body>

</html>

Like that! That would be awesome ;)

Anyways, are you going to write that tutorial anyways? :)

Wildhoney · 10-24-2007, 07:54 PM

That's what I, and many others, dislike about Smarty. In my humble opinion, it's not worth the files it's written in. Making up your own pseudo code that will be parsed by PHP may seem fun to begin with, but before you know it, you've written an entirely new programming language, and let's be honest, we don't need any unnecessary languages to learn!

In the beginning, PHP used to be like that, in fact PHP used to be shown in HTML comments and then interpreted with a C/C++ application. Thankfully it's since moved away from that area. If you want to use an if statement in your HTML, use a PHP if statement!

bluesaga · 10-24-2007, 11:24 PM

I agree with WildHoney, if you need to have IF/while/foreach etc in a template, use the php form of it. Its not going to benefit you anymore than using PHP in the template...

Tanax · 10-25-2007, 12:58 PM

Yea but that's why you keep the if tag as close to a HTML tag as possible.

<html>
<if condition="$testvariable">
</if>
</html>

bluesaga · 10-25-2007, 01:54 PM

... but thats still negligible, its still a new language to learn. And it takes extra processing time to parse the new templating functions!

Its so much easier to do:

PHP Code:


			
<html>
<?php
if($condition == $testvariable)
{
}
?>
</html>

Tanax · 10-25-2007, 02:16 PM

Okey.... :/

Karl · 10-25-2007, 02:47 PM

not sure if you know about this, but there is an alternative syntax that you can use for your conditions, I always use this when mixing PHP with XHTML:

PHP Code:


			

<div>
<?php if ($something = 1): ?>
   Something else...
<?php endif; ?>
</div>

I think it looks better than using the curly braces.

Tanax · 10-25-2007, 03:38 PM

Ah, nice :D
But are you writing a tutorial for your class?

Salathe · 10-25-2007, 03:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karl

PHP Code:


			
<div>

<?php if ($something = 1): ?>

   Something else...

<?php endif; ?>

</div>

I think it looks better than using the curly braces.

Not only does it "look better" but when you scan over your template and see a line with just <?php } ?> it can be troublesome to match up the corresponding opening brace (unless you're very, very strict about your code structure).

I use the "alternative" syntax for if, while, for, foreach... blocks almost exclusively in my template files for the reasons discussed already. It just makes life easier.

bluesaga · 10-25-2007, 04:25 PM

Hmm i normally use the alternative for html aswell, not sure why i said that really :s but yea, its easier to use php than it is to create your own language, parse it and make it work without any problems efficiently.....

Wildhoney · 10-25-2007, 05:29 PM

Extending onto Salathe's post, you can also see what you're actually ending, because instead of having just a generic ending curly brace that could be an ending to anything: for loop, if statement, switch statement, etc. You have the following which tells you exactly what you're terminating:

enddeclare;
endfor;
endforeach;
endif;
endswitch;
endwhile;

Chaos King · 10-25-2007, 06:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tanax

Ah, nice :D
But are you writing a tutorial for your class?

If you read the entire post, people posted different methods as solutions. There you go, many tutorials? :D

Just read over the posts, I saw some pretty basic ones in which can lend you a hand for what ever template system you are trying to develop.