I like the ability to trivially display any template from any PHP file (and include fragments of templates inside each other, for common elements like nav bars). For example, suppose you had a page that normally prints some information if you're logged in or an error if you're not. With PHP, you'd write something like:
if (loggedIn)
{
// print lots of HTML here
}
else
{
// print error message
}
In Smarty, it could be something like this (forgive my probably wrong syntax, it's been a while):
if (loggedIn)
{
$smarty->bind("info", someObject);
$smarty->display("info.template");
}
else
$smarty->display("error.template");
If you were really clever, you could even display the login page template instead of the error template, optionally with a message explaining why the user ended up there. And if you went with the technique as I wrote it and then decided you wanted to switch to displaying the login box, it's only a single line change! For me, it's not just about keeping the separation of view and logic, but about the ability to reuse common elements of the view from many places.
