Templates

**Electroman** · Mar 24th, 2004, 08:50 PM

I want to be able to create every page on my site with the same style using a template. I have a design for my Template but I'm not sure how I'm gonna get this to work. My first Idea was to include the file passing a Variable (say named $Content) and this variable contians all the content for the page, like this:

PHP Code:


<?

 //Do Stuff...

 

 $Content = "This is the Content of the Page.";

 

 include "Template.php";

?>

However this way the $Content variable could get very big on some of the larger pages.

I then thought about spliting the template into two parts, one for the stuff that'll be before the content and one after. Like this:

PHP Code:


<?

 include "TemplateStart.php";

 

 //Do Stuff...

 

 echo "This is the Content of the Page.";

 

 include "TemplateEnd";

?>

But Surley theres a better way to do this, does anyone have any ideas?

**kows** · Mar 24th, 2004, 09:21 PM

well, there's lots of ways to expand upon your ideas.. a friend of mine uses a main page that includes all of his database configuration files and other files to clean user's input, and then builds up the page within the index.. and then has a page that will have his template on it and will put the content in.. it's usually something like this:

PHP Code:


index.php:

<?

  require("inc/clean.inc.php");

  require("inc/config.inc.php");



  $output = "";



  if($page == "blah"){

    $output .= "<b>Blah!</b><br><br>\n";

    $output .= "<font color='red'>Blah!</font>\n";

  }elseif($page == "otherpage"){

    //other pages

  }

  require("output.php");

?>



//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

output.php:

<html>

  <head><title>the page!</title></head>

  <body>

  <!-- some header -->

  <!-- some menu/table things -->

  <!-- insert the content -->

  <?=$output;?>

  <!-- some footer -->

  </body>

</html>

So, basically, it's like your idea of using the $content and including a template file. His page is set up around the output.php page, but the content is generated within the index file. I thought the filesize would get huge too if you tried to store a whole website of information.. and I'd never personally do it, but it could be used for smaller projects. On bigger projects, you could do basically the same thing, but have different files and still base them from the output.php, which might've been what you were getting out.. like, have a index.php that will show site news or something, and then a seperate page that was the same as the index but just changed the $output variable..

I don't do it either of those ways just because I found my own way of doing it, and it works fine.. so, I figure why change?

This is basically what I do, it's based around an index file and then includes files as it sees fit..

PHP Code:


<?

  require("inc/config.php");

  

  $aim = (isset($_GET['aim']) && $_GET['aim'] != "") ? $_GET['aim'] : "";

  $ref = (getenv("HTTP_REFERER") != "" && $aim == "") ? "REFERER: " . getenv("HTTP_REFERER") : "";

  $ref = ($aim != "") ? "REFERER: AIM: " . $aim : "REFERER: none";

  

  $action = (isset($_GET['act']) && $_GET['act'] != "") ? strtolower($_GET['act']) : "main";

  switch($action){

    case "main":

      $pg['include'] = "main";

      break;

    case "register":

      $pg['include'] = "register";

      break;

    default:

      $pg['include'] = "error";

  }

  $pg['include'] = strtolower($pg['include']);

  if(!file_exists("inc/" . $pg['include'] . ".php") && file_exists("inc/" . $pg['include'] . "inc.php")){

    $pg['include'] = $pg['include'] . ".inc";

  }

  if(!file_exists("inc/" . $pg['include'] . ".php")){

    $pg['include'] = "error";

  }

?>

<html>

  <head>

    <title><?=$glob['title'];?></title>

  </head>

  <link href="css/main.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">

  <body topmargin="0" bottommargin="0" leftmargin="0" rightmargin="0" onSelectStart="return false;">

    <center>

      <table width="700" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">

        <tr>

          <td></td>

          <td height="13" colspan="2" align="right" class="head-date">

            <?=date("F jS, Y") . "\n";?>

          </td>

        </tr>

        <tr>

          <td></td>

          <td height="100" colspan="2" valign="bottom" class="head-banner">

            <img src="img/logo.gif">

          </td>

        </tr>

        <tr>

<? if(!$user['login']){ ?>

          <form action="login.php" method="post">

<? } ?>

          <td width="100" valign="top">

            <div class="mnu-top"></div>

            <div class="menu">

              <a class="menu" href="/index.php">Home</a>

              <a class="menu" href="/index.php?act=register">Register</a>

              <span class="mnu-space"></span>

<? if(!$user['login']){ ?>

              <div style="padding-bottom: 7px; padding-left: 4px;">

                username:

                <input type="text" name="user" maxlength="20" class="login-input">

                password:

                <input type="password" name="pass" maxlength="20" class="login-input">

                <input type="submit" value="login" class="login-submit">

              </div>

<? }else{ ?>

              <div style="padding-bottom: 7px; padding-left: 4px;">

                Logged in as:<br>

                <?=$user['name'];?><br>

              </div>

              <a class="menu" href="/index.php?act=post">New Entry</a>

              <a class="menu" href="/users.php/<?=$user['name'];?>">My Entries</a>

              <a class="menu" href="/index.php?act=acct">My Account</a>

              <a class="menu" href="/login.php?act=logout">Logout</a>

<? } ?>

            </div>

            <div class="mnu-bot"></div>

            <div style="height: 15;"></div>

          </td>

<? if(!$user['login']){ ?>

          </form>

<? } ?>

<? require("inc/" . $pg['include'] . ".php"); ?>

        </tr>

        <tr>

          <td width="100" style="font-size: 1px;">

            &nbsp;

          </td>

          <td height="14" colspan="2" align="right" class="foot">

            <div class="foot">&nbsp;</div>

          </td>

        </tr>

      </table>

    </center>

  </body>

</html>

I didn't exclude any of the HTML, and you can see a working example of it at http://npss.gamersepitome.net.

You can also do what you were saying with the template headers and footers.. You would usually include any configuration files within each page or even just in the header and then put in the content and a footer.. just like this, which is basically just your code..

PHP Code:


<?

  require("head.php");

  echo "this is my page";

  require("foot.php");

?>

I've tried this way, but just thought it would be harder to maintain and update because I was used to having one localized and central file that controlled almost everything.

I think that you should just try playing around with all of them, and then find out what works out best for you..

Hope that helps a bit.

edit: by the way, the page I included is for some blog software I'm writing..

**john tindell** · Mar 25th, 2004, 04:37 AM

You could use a template engine, there are lots out there, then all you need to is make your html template with variables in it then change them in your PHP script.

A good example of one is Smarty.

http://smarty.php.net

There are loads out there and you could build your own if u have some time on your hands

**ober0330** · Mar 25th, 2004, 08:07 AM

I use a slightly different method. I have a header.php, footer.php, and then a base file for each different function of my website. The base file is setup in a template that has an include for the header and footer and then the content for that page is put in a specific set of <TD> elements. I also have a navigation and database connection page that are included just like the header and footer.

My template:

PHP Code:


<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">



<html>

<head>

    <title></title>

    

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"

href="../ss.css" />



</head>



<?php

include("conn.php");

?>

<body bgcolor="White" alink="blue" vlink="blue" link="blue" topmargin="0" leftmargin="0" rightmargin="0">



<?php

include("../header.php");

?>





<!----------table containing "frame" contents----------------->

<table width="100%" cols="2" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">

<tr>

<td width=180 bgcolor="#0099ff" valign="top">

<?php

include("nav.php");

?>

</td>



<td>

<br><br>













<br><br><br><br>



<?php

include("../footer.php");

?>

</td></tr>

</table>

<!----------END table containing "frame" contents----------------->



<table width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">

<tr><td width="180" bgcolor="#9999cc" align="center"><img src="/images/php-power-micro.png" width=80 height=15 alt="" border="0"></td>

<td>&nbsp;</td>

</tr></table>

</body>

</html>

I can't show you this online, because it's an internal website, but I think you can get the idea.

**ober0330** · Mar 25th, 2004, 08:15 AM

Ok, I took a screenshot of it and blanked out the company name. And the website it's hosted on is not the company. That's my side business.

**CornedBee** · Mar 25th, 2004, 08:41 AM

You can get the output of a PHP file into a variable, do this:

PHP Code:


ob_start();

include("path/to.php");

$data = ob_get_contents();

ob_end_clean();

$data now contains the output of the included file.

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