Note: This section is under development.
By default, Yii uses PHP as its template language, but you can configure Yii to support other rendering engines, such as Twig or Smarty.
The view component is responsible for rendering views. You can add a custom template engine by reconfiguring this
component's behavior:
[
'components' => [
'view' => [
'class' => 'yii\web\View',
'renderers' => [
'tpl' => [
'class' => 'yii\smarty\ViewRenderer',
//'cachePath' => '@runtime/Smarty/cache',
],
'twig' => [
'class' => 'yii\twig\ViewRenderer',
'cachePath' => '@runtime/Twig/cache',
// Array of twig options:
'options' => [
'auto_reload' => true,
],
'globals' => ['html' => '\yii\helpers\Html'],
'uses' => ['yii\bootstrap'],
],
// ...
],
],
],
]In the code above, both Smarty and Twig are configured to be useable by the view files. But in order to get these extensions into your project, you need to also modify
your composer.json file to include them, too:
"yiisoft/yii2-smarty": "*",
"yiisoft/yii2-twig": "*",
That code would be added to the require section of composer.json. After making that change and saving the file, you can install the extensions by running composer update --prefer-dist in the command-line.
To use Twig, you need to create templates in files that have the .twig extension (or use another file extension but
configure the component accordingly). Unlike standard view files, when using Twig you must include the extension
in your $this->render() controller call:
return $this->render('renderer.twig', ['username' => 'Alex']);The best resource to learn Twig basics is its official documentation you can find at twig.sensiolabs.org. Additionally there are Yii-specific syntax extensions described below.
If you need result you can call a method or a function using the following syntax:
{% set result = my_function({'a' : 'b'}) %}
{% set result = myObject.my_function({'a' : 'b'}) %}
If you need to echo result instead of assigning it to a variable:
{{ my_function({'a' : 'b'}) }}
{{ myObject.my_function({'a' : 'b'}) }}
In case you don't need result you shoud use void wrapper:
{{ void(my_function({'a' : 'b'})) }}
{{ void(myObject.my_function({'a' : 'b'})) }}
There's a special function called set that allows you to set property of an object. For example, the following
in the template will change page title:
{{ set(this, 'title', 'New title') }}
You can import additional classes and namespaces right in the template:
Namespace import:
{{ use('/app/widgets') }}
Class import:
{{ use('/yii/widgets/ActiveForm') }}
Aliased class import:
{{ use({'alias' : '/app/widgets/MyWidget'}) }}
There are two ways of referencing templates in include and extends statements:
{% include "comment.twig" %}
{% extends "post.twig" %}
{% include "@app/views/snippets/avatar.twig" %}
{% extends "@app/views/layouts/2columns.twig" %}
In the first case the view will be searched relatively to the current template path. For comment.twig and post.twig
that means these will be searched in the same directory as the currently rendered template.
In the second case we're using path aliases. All the Yii aliases such as @app are available by default.
Extension helps using widgets in convenient way converting their syntax to function calls:
{{ use('yii/bootstrap') }}
{{ nav_bar_begin({
'brandLabel': 'My Company',
}) }}
{{ nav_widget({
'options': {
'class': 'navbar-nav navbar-right',
},
'items': [{
'label': 'Home',
'url': '/site/index',
}]
}) }}
{{ nav_bar_end() }}
In the template above nav_bar_begin, nav_bar_end or nav_widget consists of two parts. First part is widget name
coverted to lowercase and underscores: NavBar becomes nav_bar, Nav becomes nav. _begin, _end and _widget
are the same as ::begin(), ::end() and ::widget() calls of a widget.
One could also use more generic widget_end() that executes Widget::end().
Assets could be registered the following way:
{{ use('yii/web/JqueryAsset') }}
{{ register_jquery_asset() }}
In the call above register identifies that we're working with assets while jquery_asset translates to JqueryAsset
class that we've already imported with use.
You can build forms the following way:
{{ use('yii/widgets/ActiveForm') }}
{% set form = active_form_begin({
'id' : 'login-form',
'options' : {'class' : 'form-horizontal'},
}) %}
{{ form.field(model, 'username') | raw }}
{{ form.field(model, 'password').passwordInput() | raw }}
<div class="form-group">
<input type="submit" value="Login" class="btn btn-primary" />
</div>
{{ active_form_end() }}
There are two functions you can use for building URLs:
<a href="{{ path('blog/view', {'alias' : post.alias}) }}">{{ post.title }}</a>
<a href="{{ url('blog/view', {'alias' : post.alias}) }}">{{ post.title }}</a>path generates relative URL while url generates absolute one. Internally both are using [[\yii\helpers\Url]].
Within Twig templates the following variables are always defined:
app, which equates to\Yii::$appthis, which equates to the currentViewobject
Yii Twig extension allows you to define your own syntax and bring regular helper classes into templates. Let's review configuration options.
You can add global helpers or values via the application configuration's globals variable. You can define both Yii
helpers and your own variables there:
'globals' => [
'html' => '\yii\helpers\Html',
'name' => 'Carsten',
'GridView' => '\yii\grid\GridView',
],Once configured, in your template you can use the globals in the following way:
Hello, {{name}}! {{ html.a('Please login', 'site/login') | raw }}.
{{ GridView.widget({'dataProvider' : provider}) | raw }}
You can define additional functions like the following:
'functions' => [
'rot13' => 'str_rot13',
'truncate' => '\yii\helpers\StringHelper::truncate',
],In template they could be used like the following:
`{{ rot13('test') }}`
`{{ truncate(post.text, 100) }}`
Additional filters may be added via the application configuration's filters option:
'filters' => [
'jsonEncode' => '\yii\helpers\Json::encode',
],Then in the template you can apply filter using the following syntax:
{{ model|jsonEncode }}
To use Smarty, you need to create templates in files that have the .tpl extension (or use another file extension but
configure the component accordingly). Unlike standard view files, when using Smarty you must include the extension in
your $this->render() or $this->renderPartial() controller calls:
return $this->render('renderer.tpl', ['username' => 'Alex']);The best resource to learn Smarty template syntax is its official documentation you can find at www.smarty.net. Additionally there are Yii-specific syntax extensions described below.
There's a special function called set that allows you to set common properties of the view and controller. Currently
available properties are title, theme and layout:
{set title="My Page"}
{set theme="frontend"}
{set layout="main.tpl"}
For title there's dedicated block as well:
{title}My Page{/title}
Meta tags could be set like to following:
{meta keywords="Yii,PHP,Smarty,framework"}
There's also dedicated block for description:
{description}This is my page about Smarty extension{/description}
Sometimes you need calling
You can import additional static classes right in the template:
{use class="yii\helpers\Html"}
{Html::mailto('[email protected]')}
If you want you can set custom alias:
{use class="yii\helpers\Html" as="Markup"}
{Markup::mailto('[email protected]')}
Extension helps using widgets in convenient way converting their syntax to function calls or blocks. For regular widgets function could be used like the following:
{use class='@yii\grid\GridView' type='function'}
{GridView dataProvider=$provider}
For widgets with begin and end methods such as ActiveForm it's better to use block:
{use class='yii\widgets\ActiveForm' type='block'}
{ActiveForm assign='form' id='login-form' action='/form-handler' options=['class' => 'form-horizontal']}
{$form->field($model, 'firstName')}
<div class="form-group">
<div class="col-lg-offset-1 col-lg-11">
<input type="submit" value="Login" class="btn btn-primary" />
</div>
</div>
{/ActiveForm}
If you're using particular widget a lot, it is a good idea to declare it in application config and remove {use class
call from templates:
'components' => [
'view' => [
// ...
'renderers' => [
'tpl' => [
'class' => 'yii\smarty\ViewRenderer',
'widgets' => [
'blocks' => [
'ActiveForm' => '\yii\widgets\ActiveForm',
],
],
],
],
],
],There are two main ways of referencing templates in include and extends statements:
{include 'comment.tpl'}
{extends 'post.tpl'}
{include '@app/views/snippets/avatar.tpl'}
{extends '@app/views/layouts/2columns.tpl'}
In the first case the view will be searched relatively to the current template path. For comment.tpl and post.tpl
that means these will be searched in the same directory as the currently rendered template.
In the second case we're using path aliases. All the Yii aliases such as @app are available by default.
In order to register JavaScript and CSS files the following syntax could be used:
{registerJsFile url='http://maps.google.com/maps/api/js?sensor=false' position='POS_END'}
{registerCssFile url='@assets/css/normalizer.css'}
If you need JavaScript and CSS directly in the template there are convenient blocks:
{registerJs key='show' position='POS_LOAD'}
$("span.show").replaceWith('<div class="show">');
{/registerJs}
{registerCss}
div.header {
background-color: #3366bd;
color: white;
}
{/registerCss}
Asset bundles could be registered the following way:
{use class="yii\web\JqueryAsset"}
{JqueryAsset::register($this)|void}
Here we're using void modifier because we don't need method call result.
There are two functions you can use for building URLs:
<a href="{path route='blog/view' alias=$post.alias}">{$post.title}</a>
<a href="{url route='blog/view' alias=$post.alias}">{$post.title}</a>path generates relative URL while url generates absolute one. Internally both are using [[\yii\helpers\Url]].
Within Smarty templates the following variables are always defined:
$app, which equates to\Yii::$app$this, which equates to the currentViewobject
Yii parameters that are available in your application through Yii::$app->params->something could be used the following
way:
`{#something#}`