Introduction to Templator in Venddor IO

Overview

In Venddor IO, the Smarty 4 template engine is employed, ensuring a distinct separation between presentation and application logic. Dive deeper into its workings by visiting the official Smarty website.

This section will be of significant interest to developers, elaborating on the constructs usable within templates.

Structure of Templates

Templates reside in the theme's template directory and encompass:

addons: This directory contains the templates extended by your module. More details on this can be found further below.
blocks: Here you will find templates utilized in the Layout and block settings, inclusive of block wrappers and static templates.
buttons: Templates sorted based on button functionality are found here.
common: This directory encompasses templates with functionalities shared across various pages, such as breadcrumb templates or calendars.
pickers: This contains templates for dialogs facilitating product and category additions.
views: This directory holds templates for controllers. Dive deeper into this further down.

Several standalone files, like 404.tpl (for 404 error pages) and demo_theme_selector.tpl (for the Theme Editor), also reside here.

Module Templates

All module-related templates are situated within the templates/addons directory.

Inside Module Templates:

blocks: This directory houses block templates specific to the addon.
hooks: Templates utilizing hooks can be found here.
views: This is where page-specific templates added by the module reside.

Block Templates

Block templates reside within the templates/blocks directory. Their application is determined by their role, as defined in the app/schemas/block_manager/blocks.php file.

For instance, for a 'categories' block: 'templates' => 'blocks/categories' indicates that any template from the blocks/categories directory can be applied to it.

View Templates

Adopting the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern, Venddor IO places view templates in the views directory. Within this, directories define specific controllers.

Files within these directories outline modes. Additionally, component directories within controller directories hold templates offering additional functions, integrated via the include method in files.

To understand how a particular template is determined, consider this URL: /index.php?dispatch=categories.view&category_id=166. Here, categories is the controller fetching the data, hence the directory in views would be 'categories'. view signifies the mode, leading us to the view.tpl file. category_id is a parameter identifying the specific category to be displayed.

Best Practices

When working with templates in Venddor IO, consider these best practices:

Maintain separation of concerns - keep business logic in controllers and presentation logic in templates
Use component templates for reusable elements to avoid code duplication
Leverage Smarty's caching capabilities for performance optimization
Comment your template code, especially for complex sections
Follow consistent naming conventions for better maintainability