joseym/li3_partials

The partial plugin for Lithium(li3) provides flexibility to pass template sections from view to the layout.

Partial Template support for li3

Plugin to pass template sections from view to the layout., _(*1)

Installation

1. Clone/Download the plugin into your app's libraries directory.

2. Tell your app to load the plugin by adding the following to your app's config/bootstrap/libraries.php:, _(*2)

   Libraries::add('li3_partials');

Features

1. Assign strings or entire blocks of markup to a partial.

Usage

Blocks, _(*3)

There have been a number of times I was working on a project and had a clean layout rendered but the client required that something in the layout change based on what view was rendered. I used elements and view context asignments for a while but that was neither elegant or enjoyable., _(*4)

This is designed as a way to pass markup changes to section in a layout based on your view., _(*5)

• In your view

  wrap the markup you want passed to the layout in <partial></partial> tags with a name attribute., _(*6)

  html <partial name="sidebar"><h2>Sidebar for this view!</h2></partial>, _(*7)

• In your layout

  There are 2 ways to print a blocked partial in your view, _(*8)

  1. Call the blocks partial name and assign type block, _(*9)

     php <?php echo $this->partial->sidebar(array('type' => 'block')); ?>, _(*10)

  2. Call a partial block and pass the partials name, _(*11)

     php <?php echo $this->partial->block('sidebar');?>, _(*12)

Anywhere that you decide to place either of those will render the partial that was defined in your view at that location., _(*13)

Strings, _(*14)

Similar to blocks, this method is used to pass strings of text to a layout., _(*15)

"Why?" asks you, "Good question!" I reply, _(*16)

Think in terms of a page description or keywords, these may need to change based on a page view but I could find no easy way to get these requirements to the layout., _(*17)

• In your view

  In the head of your view template (or anywhere, really, I just think it's cleaner to keep these together at the top) add:, _(*18)

  php <?php $this->partial->keywords('awesome, li3, github, php, partials, woot, nifty, grand, pie, unicorns, alfalfa sprouts'); ?> It doesn't matter what you name this method, just keep in mind that that name will be how you call it in the layout., _(*19)

• In your layout

  Ok, so we defined keywords for our view! lets add them to the meta tag, _(*20)

  html <meta name="keywords" content="<?php echo $this->partial->keywords(); ?>" /> The plugin will find the stored keywords partial and render its contents where it was called., _(*21)

There is also a wrapper to ensure you only pull strings - much like blocks, _(*22)

``` php partial->string('keyword'); ?>, <sub>(*23)</sub>

_"That's foolish, it's easier just to use the other method!"_ you exclaim.
Hold tight, Fredword! I'll explain why you might want to do this below.

## Sharing Names

There may be a case where you define both a partial string and partial block with the same name.
To ensure that you pull the right one thee are 2 methods for each (actually 3 for .

__Strings__

```php
<?php echo $this->partial->string('methodName'); ?>
<?php echo $this->partial->methodName(array('type' => 'string')); ?>

Blocks, <sub>(*24)</sub>

<?php echo $this->partial->block('methodName'); ?>
<?php echo $this->partial->methodName(array('type' => 'block')); ?>

To come

1. I plan on adding enhanced cache features to this so the rendering engine isn't constantly parsing templates for partials
2. Dynamic partials - support for a data schema to auto load partials from a database.
3. Drink a beer. Why not?

Contribute

Have ideas for improvements or features? Send a pull request, I would welcome collaboration!, <sub>(*25)</sub>