CakePHP 2 & Smarty 3

A simple CakePHP 2.x Plugin to get up and running with Smarty 3. I have tested this with CakePHP 2.4 and above, but should work with little modification with anything above 2.x. If a .tpl file does not exist, it will fallback and look for a ctp file to render.

Installation

Smarty 3

First install Smarty 3, you can do this using composer. Add the following to your composer.json

{
	"config": {
		"vendor-dir" : "vendors"
	},
	"require": {
		"smarty/smarty": "3.1.*"
	}
}

Then in your root project directory, run:

$ curl -s "http://getcomposer.org/installer" | php
$ php composer.phar install

This will install smarty into vendors/smarty/smarty directory.

You will need to create and give permissions to your cache and compile directories:

$ mkdir -p app/tmp/smarty/cache/
$ mkdir -p app/tmp/smarty/compile/
$ chmod 0777 app/tmp/smarty/cache/
$ chmod 0777 app/tmp/smarty/compile/

CakePHP View Helper Plugin

Next, we have to install the CakePHP View Helper.

cd into your app/Plugin/ and run:

$ git clone [email protected]:justanil/test-cakephp.git SmartyView

Tell CakePHP to load our plugin, (add the following into app/Config/bootstrap.php):

CakePlugin::load('SmartyView');
#CakePlugin::loadAll(); // or load all plugins

Finally, we have to tell CakePHP we want to use our SmartyView Plugin to render our view files. You can put this in your AppController.php or within individual controllers PagesController.php

/**
 * Change the default CakePHP viewClass to render through our Smarty Plugin
 * @var String
 */
	public $viewClass = 'SmartyView.Smarty';

---

Basic Example

Add the following snippets in your cake application for a basic example:

// `app/Config/routes.php`
Router::connect('/smarty', array('controller' => 'pages', 'action' => 'smarty'));

// `app/Controller/PagesController.php`
/**
 * Change the default CakePHP viewClass to render through our Smarty Plugin
 * @var String
 */
$viewClass = "SmartyView.Smarty";

/**
 * Render our `home.tpl` view
 */
public function smarty() {
	$this->set('smartyFooVar', 'Woo!, it works!');
}

{*`app/View/Pages/smarty.tpl`*}
{$smartyFooVar}

When you visit /smarty, you should see Woo!, it works!

---

More Examples

You can access all loaded CakePHP helpers in template files like so:

{* Create and end form tags *}
{$form->create()}
{$form->end()}

{* import an element from app/View/Elements/filename.tpl *}
{$this->element('file_in_elements_directory')}

{* ouputs `The killer crept...` *}
{$text->truncate('The killer crept forward and tripped on the rug.', 22,
    ['ellipsis' => '...', 'exact' => false ]
)}

{* CakePHP Blocks also work *}

---

License

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2014 justanil

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of
this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in
the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to
use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of
the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so,
subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR
COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER
IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN
CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.