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Template resources and overrides

How a template name becomes a file - the design: and file: resources, the ordered design bases of a siteaccess (site design, additional designs, standard design, each with its extension designs first), override.ini…

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Address: https://doc.exponential.earth/exphelp/viewer/help/template-language/resources-and-overrides.md

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Template resources and overrides

A template is always named through a resource: design:node/view/full.tpl, file:var/.... The resource turns the name into a file. For design: that involves the designs of the siteaccess, the designs of every extension and the override rules of override.ini. This page shows how, with the resolution the installation's site siteaccess performs.

Contents

  1. Resources
  2. The design bases
  3. Finding a file without overrides
  4. Overrides
  5. Who sets the keys
  6. Include and the view functions
  7. Related pages

Resources

ResourceClassFinds
design:eZTemplateDesignResource (kernel/common/eztemplatedesignresource.php)a file below templates/ (or override/templates/) of the design bases, after the override rules
file:eZTemplateFileResource (lib/eztemplate/classes/eztemplatefileresource.php)a path, absolute or relative to the installation root

eZTemplate::factory() registers the design resource; the file resource is always there and is the default: a name without a resource is read as a file path. The examples of these pages use file: to render templates kept outside the design folders; site code uses design: so that designs and overrides apply.

The design bases

eZTemplateDesignResource::allDesignBases() builds the ordered list of folders to search (findDesignBase()):

  1. the designs, in this order: [DesignSettings] SiteDesign, then AdditionalSiteDesignList[], then StandardDesign;
  2. for each design, first extension/<name>/design/<design> of every extension in design.ini [ExtensionSettings] DesignExtensions[] (in that order), then the kernel's design/<design>; folders that do not exist are skipped.

With DesignLocationCache=enabled the list is stored in a cache file (cleared with the design_base cache id). A read-only CLI script printed the list for the installation's site siteaccess (eZTemplateDesignResource::allDesignBases()):

siteaccess:               site
SiteDesign:               media
AdditionalSiteDesignList: ezwebin, standard, base
StandardDesign:           standard
DesignExtensions:         50 extensions

design bases, in search order (49):
  1  extension/sevenx_alpha_settings/design/media
  2  extension/sevenx_themes_media/design/media
  3  extension/sevenx_authentication_2fa/design/media
  4  design/media
  5  extension/cjw_newsletter/design/ezwebin
  6  extension/ezautosave/design/ezwebin
  7  extension/ezwebin/design/ezwebin
  8  design/ezwebin
  9  extension/expui/design/standard
 10  extension/ezjscore/design/standard
 11  extension/xrowmetadata/design/standard
 12  extension/ezmultiupload/design/standard
 13  extension/cjw_newsletter/design/standard
 14  extension/ezodf/design/standard
 15  extension/swark/design/standard
 16  extension/bcgooglesitemaps/design/standard
 17  extension/bcwebsitestatistics/design/standard
 18  extension/bccie/design/standard
 19  extension/xrowextract/design/standard
 20  extension/enhancedezbinaryfile/design/standard
 21  extension/enhancedselection2/design/standard
 22  extension/ezupdate/design/standard
 23  extension/git_manager/design/standard
 24  extension/syndication/design/standard
 25  extension/ngclasslist/design/standard
 26  extension/explayouts/design/standard
 27  extension/explayouts_content_browser_ui/design/standard
 28  extension/explayouts_ui/design/standard
 29  extension/explayouts_ui_api/design/standard
 30  extension/exp_enhanced_link/design/standard
 31  extension/ezownerchange/design/standard
 32  extension/recaptcha/design/standard
 33  extension/powercontent/design/standard
 34  extension/sevenx_dse/design/standard
 35  extension/sevenx_authentication_2fa/design/standard
 36  extension/cjw_themes_jumper/design/standard
 37  extension/cjw_tmv/design/standard
 38  extension/birthday/design/standard
 39  extension/exp_oe_tiptap/design/standard
 40  extension/ezstarrating/design/standard
 41  extension/ezgmaplocation/design/standard
 42  extension/ezautosave/design/standard
 43  extension/ezie/design/standard
 44  extension/eztags/design/standard
 45  extension/ezoe/design/standard
 46  extension/ezwt/design/standard
 47  design/standard
 48  extension/enhancedezbinaryfile/design/base
 49  design/base

The first base that has the file wins, so extension/sevenx_alpha_settings/design/media can replace any template of the media theme, and the media theme any template of ezwebin or of the standard design.

Finding a file without overrides

eZTemplateDesignResource::fileMatch() tries <base>/templates/<path> in base order:

resolution of design:<path> without overrides (first existing file wins):
  design:pagelayout.tpl
    -> extension/sevenx_themes_media/design/media/templates/pagelayout.tpl  (2 places tried)
  design:node/view/full.tpl
    -> extension/ezwebin/design/ezwebin/templates/node/view/full.tpl  (7 places tried)
  design:node/view/line.tpl
    -> extension/ezwebin/design/ezwebin/templates/node/view/line.tpl  (7 places tried)
  design:content/datatype/view/ezstring.tpl
    -> design/standard/templates/content/datatype/view/ezstring.tpl  (47 places tried)

Including a design template from a template uses the same walk. Here the standard design's view template of the ezstring datatype, found in the 47th base:

{def $node = fetch( 'content', 'node', hash( 'node_id', 96 ) )}
[{include uri='design:content/datatype/view/ezstring.tpl' attribute=$node.data_map.title}]

Output:

[
Why Should You Choose Strength Training?]

Overrides

override.ini (of the siteaccess and of every extension) has one group per rule. The rule for articles on a development installation, from extension/sevenx_themes_media/settings/siteaccess/site/override.ini.append.php:

[node/view/full#ng_article]
Source=node/view/full.tpl
MatchFile=node/view/full/full_ng_article.tpl
Subdir=templates
Match[class_identifier]=ng_article
Priority=1

The design resource collects the rules per Source (eZTemplateDesignResource::overrideArray()); the MatchFile is looked up in <base>/override/templates/ of the design bases, in base order. When a template is fetched, the rules for its name are tried in order and the first rule whose conditions all match wins; a rule without conditions is a default that a later matching rule can still replace. A condition url_alias matches when the page's URL alias starts with the given value; any other key must equal the key's value (or be one of its values when the key is an array, such as class_group). Rules are taken in the order of the merged override.ini, or by a numeric Priority in the group when one is given (lower first).

On a development installation, node/view/full.tpl has 57 rules; the first ones:

override rules for design:node/view/full.tpl: 57 (default file extension/ezwebin/design/ezwebin/templates/node/view/full.tpl)
  [node/view/full#showcase_s1_tour] extension/sevenx_alpha_settings/design/media/override/templates/node/view/full/showcase_s1_tour.tpl  if {"remote_id":"showcase-s1-tour"}
  [node/view/full#frontpage] extension/sevenx_themes_media/design/media/override/templates/node/view/full/full_frontpage.tpl  if {"class_identifier":"frontpage"}
  [node/view/full#ng_article] extension/sevenx_themes_media/design/media/override/templates/node/view/full/full_ng_article.tpl  if {"class_identifier":"ng_article"}
  [node/view/full#ng_audio] extension/sevenx_themes_media/design/media/override/templates/node/view/full/full_ng_audio.tpl  if {"class_identifier":"ng_audio"}
  [node/view/full#ng_banner] extension/sevenx_themes_media/design/media/override/templates/node/view/full/full_ng_banner.tpl  if {"class_identifier":"ng_banner"}
  [node/view/full#ng_blog_post] extension/sevenx_themes_media/design/media/override/templates/node/view/full/full_ng_blog_post.tpl  if {"class_identifier":"ng_blog_post"}
  [node/view/full#ng_category] extension/sevenx_themes_media/design/media/override/templates/node/view/full/full_ng_category.tpl  if {"class_identifier":"ng_category"}
  [node/view/full#ng_contact_form] extension/sevenx_themes_media/design/media/override/templates/node/view/full/full_ng_contact_form.tpl  if {"class_identifier":"ng_contact_form"}

The same script let the design resource itself pick the file for given keys (eZTemplate::loadURIRoot(), which loads the template without rendering it):

design:node/view/full.tpl with keys class_identifier=ng_article
  -> extension/sevenx_themes_media/design/media/override/templates/node/view/full/full_ng_article.tpl
design:node/view/full.tpl with keys class_identifier=folder
  -> extension/ezwebin/design/ezwebin/override/templates/full/folder.tpl
design:node/view/full.tpl with keys class_identifier=ng_article;remote_id=showcase-s1-tour
  -> extension/sevenx_alpha_settings/design/media/override/templates/node/view/full/showcase_s1_tour.tpl

The third case matches two rules; showcase_s1_tour comes first, so it wins over the class rule. The match keys and their meaning are listed on Override match keys, the ordering rules on Override ordering.

Who sets the keys

  • content/view sets the node's keys (object, node, parent_node, class, class_identifier, section, url_alias, depth, viewmode, state, persistent_variable and more) before it fetches the view template (eZNodeviewfunctions::generateNodeViewData()), and again from content_info on a view cache hit.
  • node_view_gui, content_view_gui and attribute_view_gui set the keys of the item they render (kernel/common/ezobjectforwarder.php), so an override of node/view/line.tpl can match the class of each child in a list.
  • layout/set adds layout; error pages add error_type and error_number.
  • A view or extension can add its own with eZTemplateDesignResource::instance()->setKeys().

Include and the view functions

  • {include uri='design:parts/menu.tpl'} takes a full resource name and passes its other parameters as variables; it does not add keys, but the keys already set for the page apply to the included name too.
  • The *_view_gui functions build the name themselves from their rule in kernel/common/eztemplateautoload.php: node_view_gui uses node/view/<view>.tpl, attribute_view_gui content/datatype/view/<datatype>.tpl, and each runs the template in a namespace of its own (NodeView, ContentAttribute ...).
  • A missing file logs a warning and outputs nothing (see Errors and debugging).

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