Loading view file into a variable in Zend Framework

Question

I am trying to send mail using mail templates. To do this I want to load a .tpl into a variable. Instead of loading an HTML file and substituting placeholders, I wonder if it is possible to set values of the view in the controller, and then load this view into a variable. This way I would have a variable containing the HTML mail filled out with the information set in the controller prior to loading the view.

Any alternatives are also welcome, I mean, if there are already ways of doing mail templating in a more standardized way.

Answer 1

Sorry guys (and girls). My google skills must have noticed it was early in the morning. I found what I was looking for here: http://myzendframeworkexperience.blogspot.com/2008/09/sending-mails-with-templates.html

Answer 2

A great idea Erik, and I've done this many times.

Zend_View is really just a templating system, and can be used to generate anything, not just HTML.

Sample code - create a view, assign some data, render the view and send the mail!

$view = $this->getHelper('ViewRenderer')->view;

$view->email = $data['email'];    
$view->password = $data['password'];

$text = $view->render('mail/new-user.php');
$mail = new Zend_Mail();

$mail->addTo($data['email'], $data['forename'] . ' ' . $data['lastname']);
$mail->setSubject('Account Details');
$mail->setBodyText($text, 'utf-8');

$mail->send();

In the first line I retrieve the ViewRenderer's view so I have access to the normal script paths. You can create a new Zend_View object, but you'll need to add the path to your view scripts manually.

In my example text based content is generated, but you could generate HTML all the same.