[TYPO3-dev] My first (for me) advanced extension

[S. Teuber]

Hi there,

> > - Where do I place the form? Above file or my html template file?
> 
> For a start you can just implement it in the php-code but as you move 
> forward you should take the time to look at how other plugins (e.g. the 
> tt_news plugin) is using html-templates. Especially if you want to 
> publish this extension in the TER.

Eeks. Please do yourself a favor and put the html to an external file 
right from the start. As it's easier to maintain for you (no confusing 
mx-up of HTML and PHP), and not more complex than the general concept of 
putting things into markers (and markers into HTML), there's no real 
downsides to this.

Accessing an external HTML file is pretty simple. I like to make the HTML 
template a TypoScript contentObject to keep it highly configurable. Like 
this:

HTML-Template, put in fileadmin/html/ and name my_ext_template.html:
--------------
<div><strong>###SOMEMARKER###</strong></div>
--------------


Typoscript-Template:
--------------
plugin.tx_myext_pi1 {
    mytemplate = TEMPLATE // (or any other cObject, like HTML)
    mytemplate.template = FILE
    mytemplate.template.file = fileadmin/html/my_ext_template.html
}

// don't forget to put the plugin output in a marker, if it's not
// a plugin type "content element" which is fetched by styles.content.get
// for example: 
// page.20.marks.MYEXTHERE < plugin.tx_myext_pi1
--------------



PHP-Code (in class.tx_myext_pi1.php):
--------------
function main($content, $conf)
{
    	// Making the TypoScript configuration globally 
    	// available for all methods
    	$this->conf = $conf;

    	// Get the html template
    	$htmltemplate = $this->cObj->cObjGetSingle($this->conf
['mytemplate'], $this->conf['mytemplate.']);


    	// Set a demo marker
    	$markers = array('###SOMEMARKER### => 'Hello World');


    	// Parse markers into HTML and return the result
    	$content = $this->cObj->substituteMarkerArrayCached($htmltemplate, 
$markers, array(), array());

    	return $content;
   	
}
--------------

...simple as that. For explanations of the used cObj methods, take a look 
at http://typo3.org/fileadmin/typo3api-3.8.0/df/d65/classtslib__cObj.html

For starters, it's sufficient to check out cObjGetSingle() and everything 
that has a "substitute" as first word. 

Sven