Using template engines
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 $this->render('renderer.twig', ['username' => 'Alex']);
Additional functions
Yii adds the following construct to the standard Twig syntax:
<a href="{{ path('blog/view', {'alias' : post.alias}) }}">{{ post.title }}</a>
Internally, the path()
function calls Yii's Html::url()
method.
Additional variables
Within Twig templates, you can also make use of these variables:
-
app
, which equates to\Yii::$app
-
this
, which equates to the currentView
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 Html::url()
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 currentView
object