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Fluid Guide¶
Introduction¶
What is Fluid?¶
Fluid is a PHP template engine, developed independently of TYPO3. It was introduced back in 2009 with TYPO3 4.3, along with Extbase.
The biggest difference to most other template engines is the valid xml syntax. Therefore there is no new Syntax to understand.
The engine is available at https://github.com/TYPO3/Fluid and can be used in PHP projects without TYPO3.
Should I use Fluid?¶
Fluid is the de-facto standard for any HTML based output in TYPO3. It’s used by Extbase extensions by default and is available in TypoScript via t3tsref:cobj-fluidtemplate.
It is used by the system extension ext:fluid_styled_content, as well, to provide output of default content elements.
There is even a standalone version of Fluid available,
TYPO3\CMS\Fluid\View\StandaloneView, that provides all the means to use Fluid
in a command controller or AbstractPlugin.
How to get started with Fluid¶
- Check out the Fluid documentation https://github.com/TYPO3/Fluid
- Check out the Fluid documentation section in this guide.
- Inspect the existing Fluid templates, e.g. provided by TYPO3’s system extension ext:fluid_styled_content https://github.com/TYPO3-CMS/fluid_styled_content .
Concepts¶
TYPO3 itself requires the Fluid template engine. As this engine does not know anything about TYPO3, the engine is extended by TYPO3 within the system extension ext:fluid. This extension provides further ViewHelpers for TYPO3 specifics like link building.
Fluid itself provides a basic syntax, which is explained at https://github.com/TYPO3/Fluid/blob/master/doc/FLUID_SYNTAX.md . This syntax can be extended, see https://github.com/TYPO3/Fluid/blob/master/doc/FLUID_EXPRESSIONS.md .
Also Fluid has different levels of templates. There is always a Template, which can contain different Sections. Also the Template can inherit a Layout. For easier re-use Partials can be created and rendered within Layouts and Templates. For further information on the structure and usage of Fluid check out https://github.com/TYPO3/Fluid/blob/master/doc/FLUID_STRUCTURE.md .
In TYPO3’s extensions the default lookup paths are:
- Templates
- Resources/Private/Templates
- Layouts
- Resources/Private/Layouts
- Partials
- Resources/Private/Partials
But these can be configured through TypoScript via t3tsref:cobj-fluidtemplate-properties-templaterootpaths, t3tsref:cobj-fluidtemplate-properties-layoutrootpaths and t3tsref:cobj-fluidtemplate-properties-partialrootpaths.
To further extend Fluid, there are ViewHelpers. These are custom HTML-Tags which contain PHP Logic. To understand what they are and how to use them, check out https://github.com/TYPO3/Fluid/blob/master/doc/FLUID_VIEWHELPERS.md . If you want to write your own ViewHelpers take a look at https://github.com/TYPO3/Fluid/blob/master/doc/FLUID_CREATING_VIEWHELPERS.md .