Re: Package Proposal: HTML_Template_xTemplate

As you can probably gather there is a serious concern about adding more template engines From what you are doing, and what is happening with some of the suggestions from sam, It looks like I will have to introduce a rendering layer to flexy, so that it can allow multiple backend renderers to handle the flexy tokens toString() methods. (eg. for attributes, html(or extra tags) and template tags. ) from my thoughts so far, the base renderer, that does effectively what flexy currently does, could be easily extended to provide (sam's class based renderer, and/or handle other namespaced tags.) the only thing it may have conflicts with is the {x:something} tag, as flexy uses {something:h} where h is the formater (h=raw, none=htmlspecialchars, u=urlecode, r=print_r) I'll try and have a look at the code and see how feasible implementing this is. Regards Alan Dmitri Vinogradov wrote:

Hi .* My name is Dmitri Vinogradov and i want to present xTemplate engine (oops... i think this name was already in game)

Oh yeah...    another Template engine...   ;P

well... I have read the thread above and will try to answer the question "Do we really need yet another template engine?". I was... At first - what is it: xTemplate - is a Namespaced template engine with xsl-like syntax: Repetition:

       <x:for-each select="whatever">... </x:for-each>

Conditional Processing:

       1. <x:if test="whatever &gt;= '34'">...</x:if>
       2: <x:choose>
           <x:when test = "whatever = '34'"> ...</x:when>
           <x:when test = "whatever = '35'"> ...</x:when>
           <x:otherwise> ...</x:otherwise>
          </x:choose>

Variables:

       1. <x:value-of select="whatever" />

       2. {x:whatever}   (why this??  -
           ok...  to see the variables in WYSIWYG mode..? whyever ;)

Template source can be:

   file (default):     $srcMethod = 'xTemplate::file'
   custom source:      $srcMethod = 'customClass::customMethod' - from

DB... throught SOAP... whatever source as string: $srcMethod = 'source' - the possibility to pass the template source to template engine as string What about data to apply to template... xTemplate works with objects, array of Objects and 1. Object can be applied to template engine as parameter of $this->proccess('template.htm', $object); and / or 2. Object can be applied to template engine through template syntax:

           <x:template match="cms::getPage()">
             <x:value-of select="title" /> - the value of $object->title
             <x:value-of select="author/name" /> - the value of

$object->author->name

             <x:for-each select="links">
                <a href="{x:url}">{x:name}</a>  - the value of

$object->links[n]->url and $object->links[n]-name

             </x:for-each>

             <x:for-each select="cms::getLinks()">
                <a href="{x:url}">{x:name}</a>  - the value of

$objects[n]->url and $objects[n]->name

             </x:for-each>

           </x:template>

           <x:value-of select="cms::getPageTitle()" /> or

{x:cms::getPageTitle()}

           <x:if test="cms::getPageTitle() != ''">...</x:if>
           similar <x:when test="cms::getPageTitle() != ''">...</x:when>

Internal functions (concat(), mod(), position(), last(), sum() and other) are implied and can be extended:

      <x:for-each select="cms::getLinks()">
       <x:value-of select="concat('the length of url is ',

string-length(url), 'charackters.' )" />

      </x:for-each>

Why namespaced? Well.. following scenario: One application, lets call it Main application, - is CMS and does whole hard work - apply content to template. But the website is heavy visited - about 1000 hits in sek (what a luck ;)) So it makes no sence to run it dynamicaly - the parsed content will be stored in DB or as file or whatever once content has changed (one time a day or one time a year?) ... But we extends the website with shop layer and - what a problem - the prices must be shown dynamicly ... Main application has namespace 'x' (<x:template ...) and shop modul becomes namespace 'y' (<y:template...) so the hard work (done by Main application) still parse the content once its changed, but the shop layer parse its namespace dynamicly - and so on ...

      <x:template match="cms::getPage()">
        <y:template match="/">
        <x:for-each select="products">
           <li>
             <a href="{x:url}">{x:name}</a> - Price:
             <y:value-of select="shop::getPrice('{x:product_id}')" />
           </li>
        </x:for-each>
        </y:template>
      </x:template>

parsed content within 'x' namespace:

       <y:template match="/">
           <li>
             <a href="http://host.com/someurl">Product 1</a> - Price:
             <y:value-of select="shop::getPrice('1234')" />
           </li>
           <li>
             <a href="http://host.com/someurl">Product 2</a> - Price:
             <y:value-of select="shop::getPrice('5678')" />
           </li>
       </y:template>

parsed content within 'y' namespace:

           <li>
             <a href="http://host.com/someurl">Product 1</a> - Price:
             $12.34
           </li>
           <li>
             <a href="http://host.com/someurl">Product 2</a> - Price:
             $56.78
           </li>

Why xsl-syntax? well... xTemplate is NOT a try to write XSLT-processor with PHP ... But a. its easier for ppl who's already familiar with xsl-syntax b. and if you have ever tried to explain template syntax to designer, who

       worked just with Dreamweaver in WYSIWYG mode -  its really hard...
       this kind of syntax (xsl-like) you can add as third-party syntax to
       Dreamweaver - define all possible attributes  - and explain to
       designer who to switch to source mode ("wow -  it looks strange")
       and how to use it - the life becomes easier... ;)

Ok.. Now to sources pear install http://uglysite.net/HTML_Template_xTemplate-0.1.0.tgz or download it directly from http://uglysite.net/HTML_Template_xTemplate-0.1.0.tgz in docs/HTML_Template_xTemplate/examples/ you'll find example.php to see engine at work... Regards DV