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The views

Jaxon provides a simple and extensible API to render views, which can be used with various template engines.

The installation

In order to be able to render views with a given template engine, the corresponding package must first be installed. Packages currently exist for 6 template engines. Many of them can be used simultaneously in the same application.

  • Twig https://github.com/jaxon-php/jaxon-twig. Its identifier is twig.
  • Smarty https://github.com/jaxon-php/jaxon-smarty. Its identifier is smarty.
  • Blade https://github.com/jaxon-php/jaxon-blade. Its identifier is blade.
  • Dwoo https://github.com/jaxon-php/jaxon-dwoo. Its identifier is dwoo.
  • Latte https://github.com/jaxon-php/jaxon-latte. Its identifier is latte.
  • RainTpl https://github.com/jaxon-php/jaxon-raintpl. Its identifier is raintpl.

The directories containing the templates and the corresponding template engines must then be declared.

jaxon()->di()->getViewManager()->addNamespace('ns', '/path/to/namespace', '.blade.php', 'blade');

A call to jaxon()->view()->render('ns::path/to/view') will the render the template /path/to/namespace/path/to/view.blade.php with the Blade engine.

The variables

The following functions insert variables into views.

The share() function makes a variable available in all views.

    jaxon()->view()->share('count', 5);

The set() function makes a variable available in the next view to be rendered. It can be chained with the render() function.

    jaxon()->view()->set('count', 5)->set('current', 1)->render('ns::path/to/view');

The with() function adds a variable to the view returned by the render() function.

    jaxon()->view()->render('ns::path/to/view')->with('count', 5)->with('current', 1);

Variables can also be inserted into a view by passing an array as second parameter to the render() function.

    jaxon()->view()->render('ns::path/to/view', ['count' => 5, 'current' => 1]);

Adding a template engine

Adding a new template engine to Jaxon requires the creation and declaration of a class that implements the Jaxon\Contracts\View interface.

namespace Jaxon\Contracts;

use Jaxon\Utils\View\Store;

interface View
{
    /**
     * Add a namespace to the view renderer
     *
     * @param string        $sNamespace         The namespace name
     * @param string        $sDirectory         The namespace directory
     * @param string        $sExtension         The extension to append to template names
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function addNamespace($sNamespace, $sDirectory, $sExtension = '');

    /**
     * Render a view
     *
     * @param Store         $store        A store populated with the view data
     *
     * @return string        The string representation of the view
     */
    public function render(Store $store);
}
use Jaxon\Contracts\View as ViewContract;

class NewView implements ViewContract
{
}

The addNamespace() method will be called anytime a directory is associated with the template engine. The render() method returns the HTML code of a given view. It takes as a parameter an instance of class Jaxon\Utils\View\Store, which contains the data passed to the view.

After the class is defined, it must be declared using the following call.

jaxon()->di()->getViewManager()->addViewRenderer($myViewId, function(){
    return new NewView();
});

The $myViewId parameter is the unique identifier of the template engine, to be passed to calls to jaxon()->di()->getViewManager()->addNamespace().