X-Cart forums - Simple Guide to Creating Basic PHP Pages using Templates

I originally wrote this for my blog - but I thought I would share - I had a hard time finding this information how through the forums so I here we go a new thread.

I don't know if I just missed the section that details how to create a PHP page in X-cart so I finally just broke down and decided to write this article.
Here was my scenario - I wanted to create a static PHP page that could access from the x-cart site root. I also wanted the page to use the main template design for the site - so things like shopping cart totals and customer login info were still being displayed.

Things to know:
1.) X-Cart uses SMARTY template engine - I can't stand it - but whatever.
2.) X-Cart uses a directory structure that keeps all template files in one location (yourroot/skin1/)
3.) PHP scripts are executed from outside of this /skin1/ directory - try using a the folder called Modlues and add your custom file there.
4.) The logic for creating a template is:
yournewpage.php --> skin1/customer/home_main.tpl --> include customer/yournewpage.tpl --> skin1/customer/yournewpage.tpl
I create sitemap.php as my example.
1.) Lets create sitemap.php

Code:

 

<?php

#

# $Id: sitemap.php,v 1.0 2010/01/11 18:09:11 pdma Exp $

#



require "./auth.php";



require $xcart_dir."/include/categories.php";



$smarty->assign("_sitemap_",$_new_page_); 

$smarty->assign("main","_sitemap_"); 



func_display("customer/home.tpl",$smarty); 



?>

If you look at the last line - we just captured all of the necessary SMARTY variables and shoved them into the "customer/home.tpl" - this template calls another template into the center content area of your page "customer/home_main.tpl"
So lets alter the "customer/home_main.tpl" page - towards the last line include this just before the final "else" statement

Code:

 {elseif $main eq "_sitemap_"}

    {include file="customer/sitemap.tpl"}

Ok - so now we are injecting the "customer/sitemap.tpl" into the main content area of our web page - with all the fancy design we spent so long to perfect.
So lets create and add some content to the "customer/sitemap.tpl" in our /skin1/ directory

Code:

 {*

$Id: sitemap.tpl,v 1.0 2010/01/11 09:52:43 pdma Exp $

vim: set ts=2 sw=2 sts=2 et:

*}





{capture name=menu}

    {if $active_modules.Fancy_Categories}

          {include file="modules/Fancy_Categories/categories.tpl"}

          {assign var="additional_class" value="menu-fancy-categories-list"}

    {else}

        {assign var=thiscat value=$cat}

        {assign var=par value=0}

        {foreach from=$categories item=cats}

            {assign var=Mcatid value=$cats.categoryid}

            {foreach from=$allsubcategories.$Mcatid item=subb}

                  {if $subb.categoryid eq $thiscat}

                    {assign var=par value=$subb.parentid}

                  {/if}

            {/foreach}

        {/foreach}

          

        {foreach from=$categories_menu_list item=c}

              <h2><a href="home.php?cat={$c.categoryid}" title="{$c.category|escape}">{$c.category}</a></h2>

            {assign var=in value=$c.categoryid}

            <ul>

            {foreach from=$allsubcategories.$in item=cat}

                {if $cat.parentid eq $c.categoryid}

                    <li><a href="home.php?cat={$cat.categoryid}" class="subMenuItem">{$cat.category}</a></li>

                {/if}

            {/foreach}

            </ul>

        {/foreach}

          

          {assign var="additional_class" value="menu-categories-list"}

    {/if}

{/capture}

{include file="customer/menu_dialog.tpl" title=$lng.lbl_categories content=$smarty.capture.menu}

On this page we used some standard x-cart variables to display Categories and Subcategories - from here you can extend it to include template variables so you can even more granular control.
- example try adding a language variable to the code just after the last SMARTY include line

Code:

{$lng.lbl_shopinfo}

Like I mentioned before you can keep extending this to include simple includes to other templates such as a template to where PHP can bve executed - such as in the Modules directory outside of /skin1/

Code:

{include_php file="modules/Sitemap/sitemap.php"}

I hope this helps - if you know of a better place to find this documentation - would you please let me know.