PHP templates - with PHP [closed]

Answer 1

Symfony Components: Templating

_{(source: symfony-project.org)}

Symfony intends on moving to a new templating system based on the lightweight PHP templating system twig.

The lead developer Fabien Potencier, explains the decision here: http://fabien.potencier.org/article/35/templating-engines-in-php-follow-up

Symfony can usually be replied upon to make very informed decisions on such matters, so this framework should be something to look into.

The component is here: http://components.symfony-project.org/templating/

Answer 2

If what cringes you is the opening and closing tags, write a function that creates the html string and then have it return it. At least it will save you some tags.

Answer 3

You don't need to open the tags more than once. You can also make a function out of it if you do the same thing multiple times:

<?php
function makeul($items, $classes) {
  $c = count($classes);
  $out = "";

  if (isset($items) && count($items) > 0) {
    $out = "<ul>\n";
    foreach ($items as $item) {
      $out .= "\t<li class=\"" . $classes[$i++%$c] . "\">$item</li>\n";
    }
    $out .= "</ul>\n";
  }
  return $out;
}
?>

other page content

<?php
$persons = array('John', 'Jack', 'Jill', 'Jason');
$classes = array('odd', 'even');
print makeul($persons, $classes);
?>

Also, if you don't mind using Javascript, Jquery makes things done mod 2 pretty easy (e.g., for zebra striping a table):

$("tr:odd").addClass("odd");
$("tr:even").addClass("even");

Answer 4

If is just to apply a CSS style, why don't you use the :nth-of-type(odd) selector.

For example: li:nth-of-type(odd) { background: #f2f6f8; background: linear-gradient(top, #f2f6f8 0%, #e0eff9 100%); }

http://jsfiddle.net/melonangie/nU7qK/enter code here

Answer 5

A small help on the looping:

<? $b=false; foreach($MyList as $name) { ?>
   <li class="row<?= $b=!$b ?>"><?= htmlspecialchars($name); ?></li>
<? } ?>

By saying $b=!$b, it automatically alternates between true and false. Since false prints as "", and true prints as "1", then by defining css classes row and row1, you can get your altering rows without any trouble.

consider using :first-child css to style the first one differently.