yii2/docs/guide/tutorial-template-engines.md

Using template engines

Note: This chapter is under development.

By default, Yii uses PHP as its template language, but you can configure Yii to support other rendering engines, such as Twig or Smarty.

The view component is responsible for rendering views. You can add a custom template engine by reconfiguring this component's behavior:

[
    'components' => [
        'view' => [
            'class' => 'yii\web\View',
            'renderers' => [
                'tpl' => [
                    'class' => 'yii\smarty\ViewRenderer',
                    //'cachePath' => '@runtime/Smarty/cache',
                ],
                'twig' => [
                    'class' => 'yii\twig\ViewRenderer',
                    //'cachePath' => '@runtime/Twig/cache',
                    //'options' => [], /*  Array of twig options */
                    'globals' => ['html' => '\yii\helpers\Html'],
                ],
                // ...
            ],
        ],
    ],
]

In the code above, both Smarty and Twig are configured to be useable by the view files. But in order to get these extensions into your project, you need to also modify your composer.json file to include them, too:

"yiisoft/yii2-smarty": "*",
"yiisoft/yii2-twig": "*",

That code would be added to the require section of composer.json. After making that change and saving the file, you can install the extensions by running composer update --preder-dist in the command-line.

Twig

To use Twig, you need to create templates in files that have the .twig extension (or use another file extension but configure the component accordingly). Unlike standard view files, when using Twig you must include the extension in your $this->render() or $this->renderPartial() controller calls:

echo $this->render('renderer.twig', ['username' => 'Alex']);

Additional syntax

Yii adds some extra syntax constructs additionally to standard Twig ones.

{{registerAssetBundle('AppAsset')}} - Registers asset bundle of a given name

Forms

{% set form = form_begin({ ... }) %}
{{ form.field(...) }}
{% form.end() %}

Getting URL for a route

There are two functions you can use for URLs:

<a href="{{ path('blog/view', {'alias' : post.alias}) }}">{{ post.title }}</a>
<a href="{{ url('blog/view', {'alias' : post.alias}) }}">{{ post.title }}</a>

path generates relative URL while url generates absolute one. Internally both are using \yii\helpers\Url.

Additional variables

Within Twig templates, you can also make use of these variables:

• app, which equates to \Yii::$app
• this, which equates to the current View object

Globals

You can add global helpers or values via the application configuration's globals variable. You can define both Yii helpers and your own variables there:

'globals' => [
    'html' => '\yii\helpers\Html',
    'name' => 'Carsten',
],

Once configured, in your template you can use the globals in the following way:

Hello, {{name}}! {{ html.a('Please login', 'site/login') | raw }}.

Additional filters

Additional filters may be added via the application configuration's filters option:

'filters' => [
    'jsonEncode' => '\yii\helpers\Json::encode',
],

Then in the template you can use:

{{ model|jsonEncode }}

Smarty

To use Smarty, you need to create templates in files that have the .tpl extension (or use another file extension but configure the component accordingly). Unlike standard view files, when using Smarty you must include the extension in your $this->render() or $this->renderPartial() controller calls:

echo $this->render('renderer.tpl', ['username' => 'Alex']);

Additional functions

Yii adds the following construct to the standard Smarty syntax:

<a href="{path route='blog/view' alias=$post.alias}">{$post.title}</a>

Internally, the path() function calls Yii's Url::to() method.

Additional variables

Within Smarty templates, you can also make use of these variables:

• $app, which equates to \Yii::$app
• $this, which equates to the current View object