Web Development With PHP FastTemplate - Repeat Customers (
Page 5 of 9 )
Another nifty
little feature you'll find in FastTemplate is the ability to "nest" one template
within another - in the following example, a welcome message template is nested
within the main index page template.
<!-- begin: message.tpl -->
<div align=center style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt">
{MESSAGE}
</div>
<p>
<!-- end: message.tpl -->
<!-- begin: welcome.tpl -->
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
{CONTENT}
<hr>
</body>
</html>
<!-- end: welcome.tpl -->
Here's the script which puts them together:
<?
// index.php - welcome page
// include class file
include("class.FastTemplate.php3");
// instantiate new object
$obj = new FastTemplate("./tmpl/");
// assign names for template files
$obj->define(array(
"welcome" => "welcome.tpl",
"message" => "message.tpl"
));
// normally, this variable might be set from a cookie
// uncomment this to see how the message changes
// $repeat_visitor = 1;
// assign values to FT variable within the template
if ($repeat_visitor == 1)
{
$obj->assign("MESSAGE", "Welcome back! We've updated our catalog since
your last visit - click here to see the new arrivals.");
}
else
{
$obj->assign("MESSAGE", "You're visiting our site for the very first time,
so you might like to take our New User Tour.");
}
// parse templates
// in this case, "message" is parsed first
// the resulting output is assigned to the FT variable CONTENT
// the next template "welcome" is parsed
$obj->parse(CONTENT, array("message", "welcome"));
// and print
$obj->FastPrint(CONTENT);
?>
When the parse() method is assigned a series of templates to parse via an
array, FastTemplate will proceed through the array in a sequential manner,
assigning the result of each successive parse() operation to the variable
specified.
In this case, FastTemplate will first parse the template
"message", assign a value to the "MESSAGE" variable, and then assign the result
to the variable "CONTENT". At this stage, the variable "CONTENT" contains:
<!-- begin: message.tpl -->
<div align=center style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt">
You're visiting our site for the very first time, so you might like to take
our New User Tour.
</div>
<p>
<!-- end: message.tpl -->
Next, it will proceed to parse "welcome", assign the value of the
newly-created variable "CONTENT" to the template, and again store the result in
"CONTENT". At this stage, the variable "CONTENT" contains:
<!-- begin: welcome.tpl -->
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<!-- begin: message.tpl -->
<div align=center style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt">
You're visiting our site for the very first time, so you might like to take
our New User Tour.
</div>
<p>
<!-- end: message.tpl -->
<hr>
</body>
</html>
<!-- end: welcome.tpl -->
This is what finally gets printed to the browser via
FastPrint().
Note also that you can assign values to FastTemplate
variables on the basis of conditional tests; in the example above, the message
changes depending on whether or not the user is a repeat visitor.
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