XiTemplate Manual
XiTemplate Manual
The definitive guide
Template Introduction
Templates provide an easy way to maintain web sites as well as other
types of documents. A template can contain elements of a web page, text
for an email, XML markup, and just about any other textual
representation.
Templates are most commonly used on the web to build web pages. With
a template engine you can have one HTML page for your whole site that will
have place holders (template variables) and sections (template blocks)
that can be dynamically replaced with the proper content by a simple web
scripting language like PHP. Navigation, images, and body content are all
examples of elements can be manipulated by a script.
Why use templates?
The largest benefit to using templates is ease of maintenance.
With a template system changing the entire look of a web site can be as
easy as designing one new page and flipping a switch.
Another huge benefit is the ability to completely separate logic
from presentation. This means that you can have one person work on the
logic and another work on HTML without the two ever having to cross
paths except to agree on template layout, variables, and blocks.
About XiTemplate
XiTemplate is based on XTemplate by Barnabas Debreceni. Development
on XTemplate stopped for unknown reasons in 2001 leaving many to move to
other template engines for updated features and bug fixes.
The goal of XiTemplate is to provide the same ease of use and very
fast execution time of Xtemplate while adding new features and porting to
the even faster PHP 5 object model and Zend Engine 2.
Why use XiTemplate?
So why use XiTemplate when there are many other feature rich
template engines available like Smarty?
Easy to use
XiTemplate is very easy to learn. Other template engines, like
Smarty, are difficult to learn and hard to master.
Author comment: If you are looking for a feature rich advanced
template engine take a hard look at Smarty. Smarty is an awesome
template engine with many advanced features. However, if you need a
simple and fast template system that's easy to use, or if you are new
to templates, Xitemplate might be the best choice for you.
Fast - Fast - Fast
Xitemplate is made up of just a few hundred lines of code and has
been optimized to have a small memory footprint. This memory footprint
is even more efficient in time of high traffic when little free memory
is available.
