This WordPress plugin allows you to use the
Twig template engine in your WordPress themes. It is really simple to use and even includes a template wrapper enabling you to use a master layout file to keep your themes D.R.Y.
Usage
Let's start with the most simple use of this plugin to get you going:
`
<?php // index.php
Twig::View();
`
And that's it! The plugin will automatically know that you are in the
index.php file, and try to find the template
index.twig in any of the specified template folders.
We will later see how we can use this principle in a very creative manner.
Of course we can specify wich template to use, we do this without the file extension like so:
`
Twig::View([
'template' => 'post'
]);
`
The plugin will now look for the template
post.twig.
Template folder structure
You can offcourse keep all your templates organized into folders and render them like so:
`
Twig::View([
'template' => 'components/header'
]);
Twig::View([
'template' => 'index'
]);
Twig::View([
'template' => 'components/footer'
]);
`
If you find this an interesting aproach please read about template wrapping below.
Passing variables to templates
To pass variables to our templates you pass the view function a context parameter. The context parameter is an array of variables of your choice:
`
// define variables to pass on to template
$name = 'Martin';
$age = 26;
$footer_context = [
'author' => $name,
'date' => date('Y-m-d')
];
Twig::View([
'template' => 'components/header',
// pass on variables to use in template
'context' => [
'title' => 'Twig'
]
]);
Twig::View([
'template' => 'index',
// pass on variables to use in template
'context' => [
'name' => $name,
'age' => $age
]
]);
Twig::View([
'template' => 'components/header',
// pass on variables to use in template
'context' => $footer_context
]);
`
The variables we passed on are now available in the templates like so:
`
{# index.twig #}
My name is {{ name }} and I am {{ age }} years old!a very neat whay. Ex:
` Twig::View( ['template' =>
`
This clearly shows how we can use the WordPress template files (ex.
index.php) to handle all our logic and let the
Twig template engine do what it does best.
Remember Twig
Don't forget that you are using Twig. You can still use the awesome features of Twig such as: multiple inheritance, blocks, automatic output-escaping etc.
Template hierarchy
This plugin utilizes WordPress template hierarchy in a very neat whay. Ex:
Twig::View( ['template' =>'page-about'] );
The plugin will try to find the template
page-about.twig and gracefully fall back to
page.twig if it does'nt exist. It will actually fall back like this:
page-about-me.twig -> page-about.twig -> page.twig. Which will be very handy when we use master layout files.
Template wrapping
The plugin comes with a simple template wrapper. It allows you to specify a master layout file:
_layout.php and exposes two new functions:
`
/*
* returns the WordPress template being rendered
*
* Ex: index, page, page-about
/
get_twig_template();
/*
* returns the absolute path of the same template
*
* Ex: ABSPATH/wp-content/themes/active-theme/index.php
/
get_twig_template_path();
`
If we've enabled this feature in the admin section we can now create the file
_layout.php in our theme folder and it might look like this:
`
<?php // _layout.php
get_header( get_twig_template() );
include get_twig_template_path();
get_footer( get_twig_template() );
`
WordPress will now attempt to include
header.php, the WordPress template (ex.
index.php) and the
footer.php.
Notice that doing this allows us to make
the get_header() and
get_footer() calls only once. We can now focus on the contents of our WordPress template files, and the header and footer files will be automatically included.
Because of the two new functions, if we have a file called
header-page.php in our theme. It will be included when we visit a WordPress 'page'.
Template wrapper hierarchy
The (second) best thing about the template wrapper is that it also follows the template hierarchy. Thus we can create the file:
_layout-page.php and it will we used when visiting a WordPress 'page'. We can even create the file:
_layout-page-about.php and it will be used on our about page.
== Installation ==
- Upload the entire plugin folder to your WordPress installation's plugin directory
- Activate the plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress
- Specify a Twig installation path and a folder for your templates in the admin section (settings/twig)