Smarty is a web template system written in PHP. Smarty is primarily promoted as a tool for separation of concerns, which is a common design strategy for certain kinds of applications.
Although Smarty is known as a "Template Engine", it would be more accurately described as a "Template/Presentation Framework." That is, it provides the programmer and template designer with a wealth of tools to automate tasks commonly dealt with at the presentation layer of an application. I stress the word Framework because Smarty is not a simple tag-replacing template engine. Although it can be used for such a simple purpose, its focus is on quick and painless development and deployment of your application, while maintaining high-performance, scalability, security and future growth. Here are some of the more notable features of Smarty: Caching, Configuration Files, Security, Easy to Use and Maintain, Variable Modifiers, Template Functions, Filters, Resources, Plugins, Add-ons, Debugging, Compiling
PerformanceSo is Smarty right for you? What it comes down to is using the right tool for the job. If you want simple variable replacement, you might want to look at something simpler or even roll your own. If you want a robust templating framework with numerous tools to assist you as your application evolves into the future, Smarty is likely a good choice. |
