Web site Templating (ie: patTemplate orSmarty)

Hi everyone, I'm interested in taking the next step and learn templating. I've been toying with one called patTemplate, however I'm a little confused by it. I understand the concept, but I'm having trouble getting things to flow correctly. Logic such as how to process forms, etc. I was wondering if any of you could be of help? PatTemplate looks like it's fairly straight forward however there does seem to be very much activity from the looks of the forum on the patTemplate web site. I was also thinking about taking a look at smarty. Any help or direction would be very appreciated. Thanks, Jim