Views & Smarty

How .tpl templates are resolved, the View::assign pipeline, caching, and shared partials.

Stable Reading time ~ 3 min Edit on GitHub

Views in Nibiru are Smarty 3 templates. Each controller has a default template; nested actions can have their own. The View singleton wraps the Smarty engine and exposes one global helper: View::assign().

Where templates live

application/view/
├── templates/                # source .tpl files (you write these)
│   ├── index.tpl             # → indexController::pageAction()
│   ├── products.tpl          # → productsController::pageAction()
│   ├── products/
│   │   └── detail.tpl        # → productsController::detailAction()
│   ├── shared/
│   │   ├── header.tpl
│   │   ├── footer.tpl
│   │   └── meta.tpl
│   ├── navigation.tpl
│   └── pageination.tpl       # (note the spelling)
├── templates_c/              # Smarty compile cache (auto)
├── cache/                    # rendered HTML cache (when caching=true)
└── mockup/                   # static design mockups

templates_c/ is created and managed by Smarty. It must be writable by your web server user. cache/ is only used when [ENGINE] caching = true.

Resolution rules

The Display layer resolves the template path from the matched controller:

For pageAction() → templates/<controller>.tpl.
For a named action fooAction() → templates/<controller>/foo.tpl if it exists, otherwise templates/<controller>.tpl.

If neither resolves, the soft 404 error template is rendered.

A minimal template

{include 'shared/header.tpl'}
<body>
{include file="navigation.tpl"}

<main class="container">
  <h1>{$title|escape}</h1>
  <ul>
    {foreach $products as $p}
      <li><a href="/products/detail/{$p.id}">{$p.name|escape}</a></li>
    {/foreach}
  </ul>
</main>

{include 'shared/footer.tpl'}
</body>

{include 'shared/header.tpl'} and {include file="navigation.tpl"} are both valid Smarty include forms.

View::assign

View::assign() is how PHP data reaches templates. It’s static, idempotent, and array-friendly:

View::assign(['title' => 'Products']);
View::assign([
    'products' => $list,
    'count'    => count($list),
]);

Later calls overwrite earlier ones for the same key. Inside templates these become {$title}, {$products}, {$count}.

There’s no View::display() you call manually — the dispatcher invokes Display::display() automatically after pageAction() returns.

Shared CSS/JS injection

The convention used across the showcase apps is to push the configured asset list into the template:

View::assign([
    'css' => Config::getInstance()->getConfig()[View::NIBIRU_SETTINGS]['smarty.css'],
    'js'  => Config::getInstance()->getConfig()[View::NIBIRU_SETTINGS]['smarty.js'],
]);

{* shared/header.tpl *}
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <title>{$title|escape}</title>
  {foreach $css as $stylesheet}
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{$stylesheet}">
  {/foreach}
</head>

Then [SETTINGS] smarty.css[] in the INI file is the single source of truth for stylesheets.

Caching

Caching is opt-in:

[ENGINE]
caching = true

When enabled, Smarty caches the rendered HTML in application/view/cache/ with the lifetime Smarty::CACHING_LIFETIME_CURRENT (default ≈ 1 hour). Clear the cache with:

./nibiru -cache-clear

This wipes both templates_c/ and cache/ safely.

Smarty essentials

Things you’ll reach for daily:

{* variables *}
{$user.name}
{$products[0].title}

{* iteration *}
{foreach $items as $item}
  ...
{foreachelse}
  No items.
{/foreach}

{* conditionals *}
{if $count > 0}…{else}…{/if}

{* string filters *}
{$body|escape}              {* HTML escape *}
{$date|date_format:"%Y-%m-%d"}
{$price|string_format:"%.2f"}

{* includes *}
{include file="shared/header.tpl" title=$title}

{* assigning *}
{assign var="now" value=time()}

JSON responses

When an action calls View::forwardToJsonHeader(), Smarty is bypassed and Nibiru emits the assigned data key as JSON. Handy for AJAX endpoints:

public function searchAction() {
    View::forwardToJsonHeader();
    $results = $this->index->search($_REQUEST['q'] ?? '');
    View::assign(['data' => $results]);
}

{include file="navigation.tpl"} reads from the JSON file configured in [SETTINGS] navigation. Production apps often load multiple named nav arrays:

public function navigationAction() {
    JsonNavigation::getInstance()->loadJsonNavigationArray('headnavigation');
    JsonNavigation::getInstance()->loadJsonNavigationArray('mainnavigation');
    JsonNavigation::getInstance()->loadJsonNavigationArray('footer');
}

Each named array becomes a Smarty variable of the same name, ready to render in the matching partial.

Common gotchas

templates_c/ permissions — if Smarty can’t write there, you’ll get a fatal error. Run ./nibiru -s once to fix.
{$variable} with no value — Smarty in default mode renders nothing rather than throwing. Turn on error_reporting = E_ALL and [ENGINE] debug = true while developing to spot typos.
HTML escaping — Smarty doesn’t auto-escape. Use |escape for any user-controlled string.