Integrating a Template Engine

Although a template engine is not necessary, you may wish to integrate a template engine you like to use. In the following example, we'll demonstrate how to integrate Smarty as the view layer. We do this by loading the Smarty class as a library.

Learning by example

First, we'll show the quick and dirty method, with everything in the controller.

Make sure you have Smarty installed and setup properly. For our Example, we put it here:

/var/smarty/
  /libs/
    Smarty.class.php
    ...
  /templates/
  /templates_c/
  /configs/
  /cache/

myapp/controllers/hello.php

class Hello_Controller extends TinyMVC_Controller
{
  function index()
  {
    // important so the TinyMVC and Smarty autoloaders work together!
    define('SMARTY_SPL_AUTOLOAD', 1);
    // load smarty class file
    require('/var/smarty/libs/Smarty.class.php');
    // instantiate the library
    $this->load->library('Smarty','smarty');
    // configure Smarty
    $this->smarty->setTemplateDir('/var/smarty/templates/');
    $this->smarty->setCompileDir('/var/smarty/templates_c/');
    $this->smarty->setConfigDir('/var/smarty/configs/');
    $this->smarty->setCacheDir('/var/smarty/cache/');
 
    // now just use smarty for the view layer
    $this->smarty->assign('foo','bar');
    $this->smarty->display('hello_view.tpl');
  }
}

Now this is a lot of code in the controller, and you will probably want to use Smarty elsewhere. So the more flexible solution is to create a library wrapper:

myapp/plugins/tinymvc_library_smarty_wrapper.php

// important so the TinyMVC and Smarty autoloaders work together!
define('SMARTY_SPL_AUTOLOAD', 1);
 
// require the Smarty class
require('/var/smarty/libs/Smarty.class.php');
 
class TinyMVC_Library_Smarty_Wrapper Extends Smarty
{
  function __construct()
  {
    parent::__construct();
    $this->setTemplateDir('/var/smarty/templates/');
    $this->setCompileDir('/var/smarty/templates_c/');
    $this->setConfigDir('/var/smarty/configs/');
    $this->setCacheDir('/var/smarty/cache/');
  }
}

myapp/controllers/hello.php

class Hello_Controller extends TinyMVC_Controller
{
  function index()
  {
    $this->load->library('Smarty_Wrapper','smarty');
    // now just use smarty for the view layer
    $this->smarty->assign('foo','bar');
    $this->smarty->display('hello_view.tpl');
  }
}

Now you can load and use Smarty with one line of code in your controller. Optionally, you can autoload the Smarty_Wrapper library in the /myapp/configs/autoload.conf file.

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