TwigView plugin for CakePHP

This plugin for the CakePHP Framework allows you to use the Twig Templating Language for your views.

In addition to enabling the use of most of Twig's features, the plugin is tightly integrated with the CakePHP view renderer giving you full access to helpers, objects and elements.

Installation

Download the repository, create a folder called TwigView in your plugins folder. Extract.

Alternatively: Just clone the repository directly into your app.

$ cd app/Plugin
$ git clone git://github.com/predominant/TwigView.git TwigView

Or, add it as a submodule.

$ git submodule add git://github.com/predominant/TwigView.git app/Plugin/TwigView

Vendor Files

Download the Twig Library and move (archive)/* to APP/Plugin/TwigView/Vendor/Twig.

Alternatively: Just init the submodules of this repository. This will grab the latest version.

$ git submodule update --init

Cache Permissions

Make the default view-cache folder writeable.

APP/Plugin/TwigView/tmp/views

Alternatively: Set where you want cache files to be stored.

define('TWIG_VIEW_CACHE', APP . 'tmp');

Using the View Class

To make CakePHP aware of TwigView edit your APP/Controller/AppController.php file and add the following:

class AppController extends Controller  {
	public $viewClass = 'TwigView.Twig';
}

Be sure to load the TwigView plugin in your bootstrap.php file with:

CakePlugin::load('TwigView');

or:

CakePlugin::loadAll();

Now start creating view files using the .tpl extension.

Default Layouts

This plugin comes with all default layouts converted to Twig. Examples can be found in:

APP/Plugin/TwigView/examples

Themes

The plugin has support for themes and works just like the Theme view. Simply add the $theme property to your controller and you're set.

class AppController extends Controller  {
	public $viewClass = 'TwigView.Twig';
	public $theme = 'Rockstar';
}

This will cause the view to also look in the Themed folder for templates. In the above example templates in the following directory are favored over their non-themed version.

APP/View/Themed/Rockstar/

If you, for example, want to overwrite the Layouts/default.tpl file in the Rockstar theme, then create this file:

APP/View/Themed/Rockstar/Layouts/default.tpl

Using Helpers inside Templates

All helper objects are available inside a view and can be used like any other variable inside Twig.

{{ time.nice(user.created) }}

... where ...

{{ time.nice(user.created) }}
    ^    ^    ^    ^____key
    |    |    |____array (from $this->set() or loop)
    |    |_____ method
    |______ helper

Which is the equivalent of writing:

<?php echo $this->Time->nice($user['created']); ?>

A more complex example, FormHelper inputs:

{{
  form.input('message', {
    'label': 'Your message',
    'error': {
      'notempty': 'Please enter a message'
    }
  })
}}

Referencing View Elements

Elements must be .tpl files and are parsed as Twig templates. Using .ctp is not possible.

In exchange for this limitation you can import elements as easy as this:

{{ element 'sidebar/about' }}

Translating Strings

The trans filter can be used on any string and simply takes the preceding string and passes it through the __() function.

{{
  form.input('email', {
    'label': 'Your E-Mail Address'| trans
  })
}}

This is the equivalent of writing:

<?php echo $this->Form->input('email', array(
   'label' => __("Your E-Mail Address")
)); ?>

Translating multiple lines

The trans-block element will help you with that. This is especially useful when writing email templates using Twig.

{% trans %}
Hello!

This is my mail body and i can translate it in X languages now.
We love it!
{% endtrans %}

TwigView Custom Filters

This plugin comes with a couple of handy filters, just like 'trans', piping some core CakePHP functions into Twig templates.

ago

Shortcut to TimeHelper::timeAgoInWords

{{ user.created|ago }}

low

Convert a string to lower case

{{ 'FOO'|low }}

up

Convert a string to upper case

{{ 'foo'|up }}

debug

Display the debug (pre+print_r) output

{{ user|debug }}

pr

Display just the print_r output

{{ user|pr }}

env

Display the value from a environment variable

{{ 'HTTP_HOST'|env }}

size

Convert byte integer to a human readable size

{{ '3535839525'|size }}    //=> 3.29 GB

p

Formats a number with a level of precision.

{{ '0.555'|p(2) }}    //=> 0.56

curr

Display floating point value as currency value. USD, GBP and EUR only

{{ '5999'|curr }}         // default, $5,999.00
{{ '5999'|curr('GBP') }}  // £5,999.00
{{ '5999'|curr('EUR') }}  // €5.999,00

pct

Formats a number into a percentage string.

{{ '2.3'|pct }}    //=> 2.30%

Twig Built-In Filters

For a list of available filters please refer to the Twig Manual

Accessing View Instance

In some cases it is useful to access $this, for example to build a DOM id from the current controller and action name.

The object is accessible through _view.

<div class="default" id="{{ _view.name|lower ~ '_' ~ _view.action|lower }}">