Templating

The Basics
Sections
Blade Template Engine
Blade Layouts

The Basics

Your application probably uses a common layout across most of its pages. Manually creating this layout within every controller action can be a pain. Specifying a controller layout will make your development much more enjoyable. Here's how to get started:

Specify a "layout" property on your controller:

class Base_Controller extends Controller {

    public $layout = 'layouts.common';

}

Access the layout from the controllers' action:

public function action_profile()
{
    $this->layout->nest('content', 'user.profile');
}

Note: When using layouts, actions do not need to return anything.

Sections

View sections provide a simple way to inject content into layouts from nested views. For example, perhaps you want to inject a nested view's needed JavaScript into the header of your layout. Let's dig in:

Creating a section within a view:

<?php Section::start('scripts'); ?>
    <script src="jquery.js"></script>
<?php Section::stop(); ?>

Rendering the contents of a section:

<head>
    <?php echo Section::yield('scripts'); ?>
</head>

Using Blade short-cuts to work with sections:

@section('scripts')
    <script src="jquery.js"></script>
@endsection

<head>
    @yield('scripts')
</head>

Blade Template Engine

Blade makes writing your views pure bliss. To create a blade view, simply name your view file with a ".blade.php" extension. Blade allows you to use beautiful, unobtrusive syntax for writing PHP control structures and echoing data. Here's an example:

Echoing a variable using Blade:

Hello, {{$name}}.

Echoing function results using Blade:

{{ Asset::styles() }}

Render a view:

You can use @include to render a view into another view. The rendered view will automatically inherit all of the data from the current view.

<h1>Profile</hi>
@include('user.profile')

Similarly, you can use @render, which behaves the same as @include except the rendered view will not inherit the data from the current view.

@render('admin.list')

Creating loops using Blade:

<h1>Comments</h1>

@foreach ($comments as $comment)
    The comment body is {{$comment->body}}.
@endforeach

Other Blade control structures:

@if (count($comments) > 0)
    I have comments!
@else
    I have no comments!
@endif

@for ($i =0; $i < count($comments) - 1; $i++)
    The comment body is {{$comments[$i]}}
@endfor

@while ($something)
    I am still looping!
@endwhile

The "for-else" control structure:

@forelse ($posts as $post)
    {{ $post->body }}
@empty
    There are not posts in the array!
@endforelse

The "unless" control structure:

@unless(Auth::check())
    {{ HTML::link_to_route('login', 'Login'); }}
@endunless

// Equivalent...

<?php if ( ! Auth::check()): ?>
    ...
<?php endif; ?>

Blade comments:

@if ($check)
    {{-- This is a comment --}}
    ...
@endif

{{--
    This is
    a multi-line
    comment.
--}}

Note: Blade comments, unlike HTML comments, are not visible in the HTML source.

Blade Layouts

Not only does Blade provide clean, elegant syntax for common PHP control structures, it also gives you a beautiful method of using layouts for your views. For example, perhaps your application uses a "master" view to provide a common look and feel for your application. It may look something like this:

<html>
    <ul class="navigation">
        @section('navigation')
            <li>Nav Item 1</li>
            <li>Nav Item 2</li>
        @yield_section
    </ul>

    <div class="content">
        @yield('content')
    </div>
</html>

Notice the "content" section being yielded. We need to fill this section with some text, so let's make another view that uses this layout:

@layout('master')

@section('content')
    Welcome to the profile page!
@endsection

Great! Now, we can simply return the "profile" view from our route:

return View::make('profile');

The profile view will automatically use the "master" template thanks to Blade's @layout expression.

Important: The @layout call must always be on the very first line of the file, with no leading whitespaces or newline breaks.

Sometimes you may want to only append to a section of a layout rather than overwrite it. For example, consider the navigation list in our "master" layout. Let's assume we just want to append a new list item. Here's how to do it:

@layout('master')

@section('navigation')
    @parent
    <li>Nav Item 3</li>
@endsection

@section('content')
    Welcome to the profile page!
@endsection

Notice the @parent Blade construct? It will be replaced with the contents of the layout's navigation section, providing you with a beautiful and powerful method of performing layout extension and inheritance.

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