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