Smarty

[Hani]

Hello everyone I have just discovered Smarty and have found it great.
I have written a class that extends it and would like your feedback.
Especifically with regards to the approach I have taken. Have I
reinvented the wheel? Is there a more efficient approach? etc...

The class needs some explaining.

I was looking for a way to provide support for multi languages as well
as multi themes, allowing for these to be changed dynamically by the user.

Luckly I found Smarty and I loved the way Andre provides multilanguage
support (http://www.phpinsider.com/smarty-forum/viewtopic.php?t=84). So with
regards to language I just ripped his code and changed it to suit me better.

As for themes, that is where I had some problems. The approach I saw around
was basically done by adding a {include ... header} and {include ... footer}
to your files, where the actual header/footer file that is included would depend
on a user modifiable variable.

This is fine and works, it has the advantage of being very simple.

But what I wanted was to allow the designers to write the pages in such a way
that they can actually see the headers and footers. DreamWeaver Templates are
great at that.

So what I did was to write a class that extends Smarty and registers a prefilter
that provides support for DreamWeaver.

The way it works is as follows:
- The designer creates a set of DreamWeaverTemplates for his site (lets
assume his website has two types of pages (call them Simple_Main.dwt
(for his Main pages) and Simple_Other.dtw (for his other pages) ).
- He will also creates a number of DreamWeaver Editable regions for these
template files.
- He then creates his webpages using DreamWeaver attaching the appropriate
template to these files.
- At this point he has created what I call a Theme.
- To create a new Theme all he needs to do is create another set of
template files such as Graphical_Main.dwt and Graphical_Other.dwt

What my class allows the users to do is to switch between these various
Themes dynamically.
Additionally I use Smarty to cache these so I dont have to calculate them
all the time, which would cost too much in terms of processing.

The advantage of this approach, is that I when I am editing my pages using
DreamWeaver I actually see the page as it would be displayed (minus smarty
template handling stuff ofcourse).

Having just read what I wrote I think that I may confuse more than explain.

Anyway I have place a copy of my files at
http://www.naguib.info/Smarty

I would appreciate any feedback. I am very new to PhP and have only been playing
around with Smarty for 2 days so I have also added comments in my code where I
think I NEED HELP, any help will be appreciated.

Note that for these to work you will need to modify
a few thingd specially my references to $_SESSION["KApp"] and the includes.

[maw]

I am also working with DW and Smarty and am going to spend some time looking over your code. My goals are different - I am not looking to deal with multi-laguages or selectable themes, however I do want to work with DW templates so that the designer I am working with can see how the compiled page will look in DW.