Re: Question about template systems

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Shawn McKenzie wrote:
> Matthew Croud wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> First post here, I'm in the process of learning PHP , I'm digesting a
>> few books as we speak.
>> I'm working on a content heavy website that provides a lot of
>> information, a template system would be great and so i've been looking
>> at ways to create dynamic data with a static navigation system.
>>
>> So far, using the require_once(); function seems to fit the bill in
>> order to bring in the same header html file on each page.
>> I've also looked at Smartys template system.
>>
>> I wondered how you folk would go about creating a template system ?
>>
>> My second question might be me jumping the gun here, I haven't come
>> across this part in my book but i'll ask about it anyway.  I often see
>> websites that have a dynamic body and static header, and their web
>> addresses end like this: "index.php?id=445" where 445 i presume is some my 
>> file reference.
>> What is this called ?  It seems like the system i'm after but it doesn't
>> appear in my book,  If anyone could let me know what this page id
>> subject is called i can do some research on the subject.
>>
>> Thanks for any help you can provide :)
>>
>> Matt.
>>  
> 
> I have written a popular theme/template system for some CMS systems.  In
> my opinion, templating is only needed for those that are totally
> ignorant of the concept of programming languages in general.  It helps
> for those designers that know HTML or they export their graphics as HTML
> and know enough to modify it or add some simple tags like {post-date} to
> HTML.  That's it!  No loops, no ifs, nothing.  Simple things
> designers/users can add that represent some complex code, queries, etc...
> 
> PHP IS a template language.  You can easily separate your logic and
> design/display using PHP.  Anything more than abstracting some complex
> code to some simple var is overkill.  If you want to display a dropdown
> of categories, and the code needed is a database query and some PHP
> logic, etc., then it makes sense in my above scenario to do this in code
> and then assign the result to a template var like {categories-dropdown}
> that the designer/user can use in the HTML.  Other than that its just waste.
> 
> Smarty and similar template approaches just take PHP (but more limited)
> and make it look slightly different.  Anyone who doesn't know or want to
> know anything about programming will not see the difference between PHP
> and Smarty.  Consider the following:
> 
> PHP: <?php echo $somevar; ?>
> 
> Smarty: {somevar}
> //oh except in your PHP you have to do the following
> //$smarty->assign('somevar', $somevar);
> //$smarty->display('some.tpl');
> 
> PHP: include('header.tpl');
> 
> Smarty: {include file="header.tpl"}
> 
> Don't even get me started on loops and conditionals.  Smarty just
> replicates PHP, except it looks slightly different and is much less
> powerful.  If you are confused with:
> 
> if ($something) {
> 	echo "Some stuff...";
> } else {
> 	echo "Some other stuff...";
> }
> 
> Why is this better:
> 
> {if $something}
>     Some stuff...
> {else}
>     Some other stuff...
> {/if}
> 
> Like I said earlier, if you have some complex code that you can reduce
> to a simple tag or something that a designer can insert into HTML then
> great.  If not then it is just unsuccessfully trying to replicate PHP!

Actually, I forgot myself and the alternative syntax:

if($something):
    echo "Some stuff...";
else:
    echo "Some other stuff...";
endif;

Hardly different...

-- 
Thanks!
-Shawn
http://www.spidean.com

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