The Smarty template engine is the underlying technology, enabling XOOPS developers to create layouts for pages, which resemble standard HTML. This makes it easy for a non-PHP designer to create visually advanced layouts without having to learn PHP
Smarty Tags The XOOPS tag for using Smarty code is to enclose statements in <{ and }> The most used Smarty code is
<{$variable_name}>
for inserting variables "assigned" to Smarty in the PHP files and
<{foreach item=item_name_in_loop from=$array_containing_data}>
<{$item_name_in_loop.name_of_index}>
<{/foreach}>
for looping through array values.
Variable Assignment Variables are assigned in PHP files like this:
$xoopsTpl->assign('variable_name', $variable_value);
for assigning a value to a variable (corresponds to the PHP statement $variable_name = $variable_value) or
$xoopsTpl->append('array_name', $variable_value);
for adding a value to an array (corresponds to the PHP statement $array_name[] = $variable_value) Much more information about Smarty is available on
smarty.php.net