What is .tpl files? php, web design

Question

Hi guys!

A man wants me to redesign a site run in PHP (VideoCMS). But when I asked him to send me the source he has given me *.tpl files instead of *.php. There is some code inside them:

{include file='header.tpl' p="article"} 

<br />
<table width="886" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
  <tr>
    <td width="150" valign="top">
    <div id="reg_box">
    <h3 class="captions">{$lang.articles}</h3>
     <div id="list_cats">
     <ul>
         {$article_categories}
     </ul>
     </div>
    </div>
    <br />
    <div id="reg_box">
    <h3 class="captions">{$lang.members}</h3>
    {if $logged_in == '1'}
    {include file='loggedin_body.tpl'} 
    {else}
    {include file='login_body.tpl'} 
    {/if}

or

{include file='header.tpl' p="index"} 

{php} $_SESSION['isFair'] = "Yes"; {/php}

Question: what's the interpreter of the code? How to redesign this site?

Answer 1

Templates. I think that is Smarty syntax.

Answer 2

Those look like Smarty templates. There should be some additional PHP scripts which actually instantiate the Smarty engine and give it the data it can use for the replaceable elements.

Answer 3

Number 3 hit on Google for "tpl file" (even though it's one of those annoying "Fix TPL errors now", "Scan TPL files with our virus scanner", sell-you-everything-under-the-sun-with-flashy-ugly-ads-when-all-you-wanted-was-the-file-description sites) is:

Used by PHP web development and PHP web applications as a template file. Mostly used by Smarty template engine. Template is a common text file (like .html file) and contains user defined variables that are replaced by user defined output content when PHP web application parsing a template file.

Answer 4

That looks like Smarty to me. Smarty is a template parser written in PHP.

You can read up on how to use Smarty in the documentation.

If you can't get access to the CMS's source: To view the templates in your browser, just look at what variables Smarty is using and create a PHP file that populates the used variables with dummy data.

If I remember correctly, once Smarty is set up, you can use:

$smarty->assign('nameofvar', 'some data');

to set the variables.

Answer 5

The files are using some sort of template engine in which curly braces indicate variables being generated by that templating engine, the files creating such variables must be present elsewhere with the more or less same name as the tpl file name. Here are some of templates engine mostly used.

Smarty

Savant

Tinybutstrong

etc

With smarty being widely used.

Answer 6

You have to learn Smarty syntax, that's a template system.