phpBB Standalone Template Engine

[nanothree]

In my opinion phpBB has the best templating system i have used. Its so simple and does everything i want a template engine to do. I wanted to be able to use my template engine in my own projects but didnt want to use anything else from phpBB.

After about a year of putting it off i finally decided i would take the plunge and try and get it to work standalone. After doing it, it took about 30 minutes, im really annoyed i didnt do it earlier.

Here is how to do it, it should take you about 10 minutes.

Firstly for convenience sake, you need to get the related classes together.

These are template (includes/template.php) and template_compile(includes/functions_template.php).

Take both of these classes and put them into a single file (template.php). Make sure that you don't include the:

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if (!defined('IN_PHPBB'))
{
    exit;
}
  

This will stop the script. Since we are not using this class from within phpBB we will not have that constant defined.
Once these classes are together you need to make 2 changes to the code.
First find:

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$this->files_template[$handle] = $user->theme['template_id'];
  

and comment it out.
Finally find:

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phpbb_chmod($filename, CHMOD_WRITE);
  

in 3.0.6. Here's the line you should be looking for:

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phpbb_chmod($filename, CHMOD_READ | CHMOD_WRITE);

and replace it with

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//phpbb_chmod($filename, CHMOD_WRITE);
chmod($filename, 0777);  

Your standalone templating class is now ready. Use is exactly the same as in phpBB except that you need to output the template at the end of your script, as this is taken care of by page_footer usually.

index.php:

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include('classes/Template.php');

$template = new Template();

$template->set_custom_template('templates', 'default'); //this is important as it states where the template files are located

$template->assign_var('TITLE', 'Standalone phpBB Template Class');

$template->set_filenames(array(
    'body' => 'index_body.html'
));

$template->display('body');
 

The code above shows how to use the class. Nearly the same as inside phpBB but you must include the $template->set_custom.... line.

The template files in my example are held in a folder named 'templates'. The directory structure for my little example is as follows.

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/index.php
/classes/
/cache/
    template.php
/templates/
    index_body.html
    site_header.html
    site_footer.html    

By creating 'cache' folder the class caches the files for me, if its not there it simply doesn't do any caching

and my index_body.html looks like this:

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<!-- INCLUDE site_header.html -->
		<h1>{TITLE}</h1>
<!-- INCLUDE site_footer.html -->

I hope some one finds this useful.

[Raimon]

Moved to mod writers discussion since it is related to coding

[Lyr]

Hello.

I would like to add one advice from my own experience as "Template engine beginner who want to try this one for his portal and know very few about phpBB".


I had to replace this thing

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$template->set_custom_template('templates', 'default');

by this one

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$template->set_custom_template(PHPBB_TEMPLATES, 'default');

Otherwise it was unable to find the templates just looking for "templates" directory. PHPBB_TEMPLATES is defined in my entry point as the following

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...
$null = define('PORTAL_BASE_DIR', dirname($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME'])  );
...
// phpBB template engine informations
$null = define('PHPBB_ROOT_PATH', PORTAL_BASE_DIR.'/view');
$null = define('PHPBB_TEMPLATES', PHPBB_ROOT_PATH.'/templates');

Note that defining PHPBB_ROOT_PATH is mandatory (or so I understood).


Thanks nanothree for the explanation !

[Bogey]

It took me a while to post this here but... thanks for posting this It was great

[stickerboy]

Indeed and bookmarked. Starting a new project and this will help me greatly. Was actually about to try and do it myself, just my luck that I find it today Cheers again.

[nanothree]

no problem,

i'm glad its come to some use for you guys

[Sam]

Nice topic, I will be starting a project in the coming months and I really wanted to use the phpBB template engine, but I was too lazy to go remove all the dependencies to the phpBB install. Thanks!

Bookmarked.

[imkingdavid]

Definitely a great thing to know. Thanks for taking the time to figure this out. I may be using this on a few projects in the future. Bookmarked.

[John P]

Bookmarked!!

[igorw]

Thanks for sharing, bookmarked.

[Nelsaidi]

Thanks for sharing + Bookmarked, but noticed one thing:

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chmod($filename, 777);  

Should be

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chmod($filename, 0777);   

Reason: "To ensure the expected operation, you need to prefix mode with a zero (0): " - See http://uk2.php.net/chmod

[nanothree]

thanks Nelsaidi, i've updated the original post with your fix.

[thesilmister]

I am having some serious problems with using the phpBB template parser in my own website, separate to phpBB.

Does anyone have the modified template.php file with a list of the required variables needed in order to execute the template engine.

Thank you.

[squeek]

hello, not sure if this topic is still active but thought i'd post here anyway.
this is just what i have been looking for but ive encountered a problem

These are template (includes/template.php) and template_compile(functions/functions_template.php).

the line above doesnt make sense, i can find the (includes/template.php) but i cant find (functions/functions_template.php) because there is no directory called functions? i figured you were referring to the file functions_template.php in the includes folder so i tried using that. i found by using that file i couldnt find the lines below...

$this->files_template[$handle] = $user->theme['template_id'];

or

phpbb_chmod($filename, CHMOD_WRITE);

could someone please correct me and point me in the right direction. i really hope this helps me to get started and thanks for posting

[imkingdavid]

hello, not sure if this topic is still active but thought i'd post here anyway.
this is just what i have been looking for but ive encountered a problem

These are template (includes/template.php) and template_compile(functions/functions_template.php).

the line above doesnt make sense, i can find the (includes/template.php) but i cant find (functions/functions_template.php) because there is no directory called functions? i figured you were referring to the file functions_template.php in the includes folder so i tried using that. i found by using that file i couldnt find the lines below...

$this->files_template[$handle] = $user->theme['template_id'];

or

phpbb_chmod($filename, CHMOD_WRITE);

could someone please correct me and point me in the right direction. i really hope this helps me to get started and thanks for posting

You are correct, he is referring to includes/functions_template.php. For the first line, you were going to comment it out anyway, so if it's not there it shold be alright.

For the second one, they changed it in 3.0.6. Here's the line you should be looking for:

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phpbb_chmod($filename, CHMOD_READ | CHMOD_WRITE);

I hope this helps.