Views

Introduction

This is the response type you'll use for the most of your static (HTML) content. We could say that View response is actually template and you might be right because you can pass variables and render other views inside view, but there's no special templating engine nor it'll ever be. We think PHP itself is powerful enough so no extra syntax is needed. And that's why framework's error handler will work out of the box in templates as well.

Every View class needs its .phtml pair which will be used when flushing content to output buffer, so let's call that .phtml file as template and let's call View class as view.

Configuration

You need to say which folder is the root for all the templates you'll be using. If it's not set, framework will use [applicationPath]/views folder by default.

All template files must have .phtml extension.

Responding With View

As seen in other response classes, you can return View response from your controller's method:

use Koldy\Response\View;

class IndexController
{
    public function indexAction()
    {
        return View::create('base');
    }
}

When creating view, you must tell which template file you'll be using. In the example above, views/base.phtml will be used. Template file(s) can contain anything you want and you can embed PHP within the templates just like in old days. We encourage the following syntax in templates:

<h1>Hi <?= $this->variable_name ?></h1>

<h2>Conditions</h2>
<?php if ($this->has('variable_name')) : ?>
    We have the variable set!
<?php endif; ?>

<h2>Loops</h2>
<ul>
<?php foreach ($this->get('some_array') as $key => $value) : ?>
    <li>We have <?= $key ?> and <?= $value ?></li>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</ul>

Passing Variables To Templates

View class has Data helper so you can easily set key-value pairs which could be used in template files.

return View::create('base')
    ->set('first_name', 'John');

You can print first_name name in template like this:

<h1>Hi <?= $this->first_name ?></h1>

Or:

<h1>Hi <?= $this->get('first_name') ?></h1>

Rendering Another View

To render another template inside of template, use:

<div>
    <?= $this->render('another') ?>
</div>

Framework will look up for views/another.phtml and it'll print on the position of render() method. You may pass set of variables as second parameter of render() method which is useful if you're printing some list of products and each product has different values in it.

ProductsController.php:

use Koldy\Response\View;

class ProductsController
{
    public function indexAction()
    {
        return View::create('products')
            ->set('products', [
            [
                'id' => 1,
                'name' => 'First product',
                'description' => 'It\'s really cool!'
            ],
            [
                'id' => 2,
                'name' => 'Second product',
                'description' => 'It\'s cool even more!'
            ]
        ]);
    }
}

views/product.phtml:

<div class="product" data-id="<?= $id ?>">
    <h3><?= $name ?></h3>
    <p><?= $description ?></p>
</div>

views/products.phtml:

<div class="products>
    <?php foreach ($this->products as $product) : ?>
        <?= $this->render('product', $product) ?>
    <?php endforeach; ?>
</div>

NEVER DO any logic inside templates! Template should only print data and eventually loop through the prepared data and nothing else! All logic should be inside controller or inside your class which extends View class.

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