Re: Auto-generating HTML

On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 3:47 PM, Steve Staples <sstaples@mnsi.net> wrote: > On Mon, 2010-09-20 at 14:56 -0400, Andy McKenzie wrote: >> Hey folks, >> >>   I have the feeling this is a stupid question, but I can't even find >> anything about it.  Maybe I'm just not searching for the right things. >> >>   Here's the problem.  I'm writing a lot of pages, and I hate going in >> and out of PHP.  At the same time, I want my HTML to be legible.  When >> you look at it, that's kind of a problem, though... for instance >> (assume this had some PHP in the middle, and there was actually a >> reason not to just put this in HTML in the first place): >> >> Simple PHP: >> <?php >> >> echo '<html>'; >> echo '<head>'; >> echo '  <title>Page Title</title>'; >> echo '</head>'; >> echo '<body>'; >> echo '<p>This is the page body</p>'; >> echo '</body>'; >> echo '</html>'; >> >> ?> >> >> >> Output page source: >> <html><head>  <title>Page >> Title</title></head><body><p>This is the >> page body</p></body></html> >> >> >> Now, I can go through and add a newline to the end of each line (echo >> '<html>' . "\n"; and so on), but it adds a lot of typing.  Is >> there a >> way to make this happen automatically?  I thought about just building >> a simple function, but I run into problem with quotes -- either I >> can't use single quotes, or I can't use double quotes.  Historically, >> I've dealt with the issue by just having ugly output code, but I'd >> like to stop doing that.  How do other people deal with this? >> >> Thanks, >>   Alex >> > > > Have you thought about SMARTY templates? > > easy to use, it's just a class, and you write your html in template > files, which are easier to read than in your php files. > > Just a thought... i personally LOVE smarty template. > > Steve > > I've never used it, but I may take a closer look. Overall I tend to find templates and pre-built frameworks frustrating, but it may be time to break down and learn to use them. -Alex