php-silverplate

Forget to include header.php and footer.php anymore.

PHP Silverplate serves your static content on a silver platter. It does not matter if you need to write simple, one-page website, or a whole book - PHP Silverplate accepts any HTML or Markdown file and displays it inside a predetermined layout file. Pretty URLs and HTML5 Boilerplate included.

Quickstart Guide

Use Composer to download the stable version:

$ curl -s https://getcomposer.org/installer | php
$ php composer.phar create-project dragonee/php-silverplate

Make your changes in the index.php file. Add necessary style declarations to the css/main.css. Then access the main directory of PHP Silverplate installation with your web browser.

Features

• single layout.php file for the whole website (with an ability to specify layout file on a per-file basis).
• file formats: .php for HTML/PHP files, .md for Markdown, .redir for redirects to other URLs.
• Markdown files are parsed by excellent PHP Markdown library: http://michelf.ca/projects/php-markdown/
• pretty URL rewriting with .htaccess
• simple structure - place text.php in the website directory and access it via the example.com/text/ address.
• nested directories are also supported.
• single 404.php file for your convenience.
• HTML5 Boilerplate v4.0.2 - you can go straight to the business.

Usage

When an user navigates to the arbitrary URI, for example /example, app.php begins to search for corresponding file in the following order:

• At first, it checks for an directory named example. If such directory exists, app.php sets its URI internally to /example/index and resets the search.
• Next, a file with the name example.md is looked up. If it exists, it is parsed as Markdown file and rendered in the layout.php file.
• Next, a file with the name example.php is looked up. If it exists, it is treated as the PHP file and rendered in the layout.php file.
• Next, a file with the name example.redir is looked up. If it exists, the script returns 302 Found response and redirects to the link specified in the contents of the .redir file.
• If no file is found, 404.php is displayed and the application responds with 404 Page Not Found response. 404.php is rendered independently from the layout file.

app.php is completely transparent and relies on the filesystem to find files. That means you are able to structure your files in subdirectories any way you want.

app.php does not allow accessing files that are outside the directory app.php is located in. This also affects symbolic links.

Blocks

You can provide blocks in the layout file that can be overwritten by data specified in the content file. The most common use case is to provide the <title> tag of the document.

In order to define a block, put a get() function in the layout file:

<title><?php echo get('title', 'Default Title') ?></title>

You can override the default value of the title block by setting it in the content file:

<?php meta('title', 'Another page') ?>

Or in the Markdown file:

Meta title: Another page

In PHP content files you can also open() and close() multiline blocks:

<?php open('javascripts') ?>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery-1.7.2.min.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery.plugin.js"></script>
    [...]
<?php close('javascripts') ?>

Currently Markdown files do not have any support for the opening and closing blocks.

Custom Layouts

In order to specify custom layout file for a content file, fill a layout block:

<?php meta('layout', 'my_layout') ?>

or:

Meta layout: my_layout

Make sure, that the my_layout.php file is present before using it.

Relative URLs

With the release of v0.8.1, PHP Silverplate gives you a way to write paths in your layout and content files in a relative maneer to the application root directory.

• Use path://some-image.png in your Markdown files.
• Use App::path('some-image.png') in your PHP files.

Design

You can style your files differently based on their type. app.php provides your layout.php file with two different classes:

• .php-file for PHP files.
• .md-file for Markdown files.

These classes can help you distinguish between styles specific for your Markdown document layouts and between your PHP layouts.

The layout.php provided in this distribution also defines the classes block, which can be used to build some conditional CSS styles for some files on your website.