Sintags, The Akelos Framework special syntax for view Templates

The Akelos Framework uses PHP as its language for templates, but sometimes looping and printing PHP vars becomes a repetitive task that makes your view templates look not beauty.

The Akelos Framework doesn't want to force you to learn another useless template language. You have the power of PHP on your templates, but in some cases there is need for a graphic designer to create templates for views, so we have added a very limited syntax that allows you to create simple but powerful templates on WYSIWYG HTML editors.

This special syntax is known as Sintags (where "Sin" comes from the Spanish word for without) which is a set of rules on your view using only "?", "_", "{", "}", "end", "." and "-" characters. Parsed Sintag is converted to PHP code and cached as a .php file for better performance.

You can grab the AkSintangs.php source code to check how this works. It has some dependencies like AkInflector.php in order to do the loop magic.

Sintags documentation

Sintags elements

{: Starts a Sintag block
}: Ends a Sintag block
{var_name?}: Asserts if given element has been set by the controller and prints the value of "var_name"
{?var_name}: Asserts if element is not empty and starts a php condition block like "if(!empty($var_name)) {". IMPORTANT NOTE, You need to close this blocks using "{end}" or <?php } ?>
{end}: Closes a block generating <?php } ?>
{object.attribute}: "." is used for accessing object attributes. This is the same as <?php echo $object->attribute; ?>
{array-key}: "-" is used for accessing array on a specific key. This is the same as <?php echo $array['key']; ?>
_{Multilingual text}: _{ } will enclose a text for internationalization
{_multilingual_var}: {_ } will enclose a variable for internationalization. This variable must actually be an array with the locale code as key

Most of this template syntax has been added to make easy the display of Active Record on the views, and internationalization handling, therefore it stands on the following basic rules.

Printing variables

Sintags:

      {comment}

PHP CODE:

      <?php 
       echo $comment;
      ?>

Printing object attributes

Sintags:

    {post.Comments}
    {post.Comments.latest}

PHP CODE:

<?php 
    echo $post->Comments;
?>
<?php 
    echo $post->Comments->latest;
?>

Printing array elements

Sintags:

    {people-members}
    {people-0-member}

PHP CODE:

<?php 
    echo $people['members'];
?>
<?php 
    echo $people[0]['member'];
?>

Printing a mix of arrays and objects

Sintags:

    {people.members-0.name}
    {posts-latest.created_at}

PHP CODE:

<?php 
    echo $people->members[0]->name;
?>
<?php 
    echo $posts['latest']->created_at;
?>

Create a condition block if an element has a value on it (using PHPs empty call)

Sintags:

    {?post-comments}
        {post.comment.details}
    {end}

PHP CODE:

<?php 
    if(!empty($post['comments'])) 
    { 
        echo $post->comment->details;
    } 
?>

Attempt to print a variable only if it has been set by the controller

Sintags:

    {Post.comment.details?}

PHP CODE:

<?php 
    echo isset($Post->comment->details) ? $Post->comment->details : '';
?>

Looping over arrays and Active Record collections

Sintags:

{loop posts}
    {post.comment?} {post.author?} 
{end}

PHP CODE:

<?php 
empty($posts) ? null : $post_loop_counter = 0;
if(!empty($posts)){
    foreach ($posts as $post_loop_key=>$post){
        $post_loop_counter++;
        $post_odd_position = $post_loop_counter%2;
        echo isset($post->comment) ? $post->comment : '';
        echo isset($post->author) ? $post->author : '';
    }
}
?>

We need to assign a plural "posts" on the {loop *} tag and fetch a singular "post" for retrieving single element details.

As you can see, generated PHP code comes with some helpful vars added automagically that are useful when iterating collections:

Replace * with the singular form of the array name we are iterating

*_loop_counter Holds current iteration pass stating on 1 (something like the tedious ++; on every iteration we usually code
*_loop_key Holds current array key
*_odd_position Holds true or false boolean to help us on making nice row color changes

Getting a database stored multilingual value for an active record field

Sintags:

    {_post.comment}

PHP CODE:

<?php 
    echo empty($post->comment) || !is_array($post->comment)? '' : 
    $text_helper->translate($post->comment);
?>

Just by adding "_" after "{" you will get the translated version of "comment". In case you have English and Spanish comments you must have the following columns in your database "en_comment" and "es_comment".

Note that $post->comment actually holds an array with the locale code as key, so you can set your own localized arrays that will not be added to the locale/ files

Getting a multilingual value for a string

Sintags:

<h1>_{Ain't easy to translate text?}</h1>
      _{<p>It's really simple even to add 
      <a href='http://google.co.uk'>Localized links</a>
      </p>}

PHP CODE:

<h1><?php echo $text_helper->translate('Ain\'t easy to translate text?'); 
?></h1>
    <?php echo $text_helper->translate('<p>It\'s really simple 
    even to add 
      <a href=\'http://google.co.uk\'>Localized links</a>
      </p>'); ?>

Using this function, locales are added automatically to your app/locales/CONTROLLER_NAME/ folder. Note that the multilingual text must written in the framework default language (English by default)

Escaping {} from your translated text

Sintags:

_{I need to print \{something_inside_curly_brackets\}. 
_\{Maybe a multilingual text example\} }

PHP CODE:

<?php echo $text_helper->translate('I need to print
 {something_inside_curly_brackets}. 
_{Maybe a multilingual text example} ', array(), 
$controller_name); ?>

You just need to add a backslash before open and close curly brackets in order to escape it

Colophon

Remember that Sintags is not meant to replace PHP, but to speed up development. It's good to use this syntax because it keeps views more clear. So if you start seeing to much PHP code on your view, consider moving some view logic into view helpers