Smart templates in Advanced Views

Smart templates combine HTML with template engine expressions. Advanced Views includes several built-in template engines, allowing you to choose the one that best fits your workflow.

Benefits over drag-and-drop page builders:

• Full control over the markup

• Advanced conditional logic

• The ability to include any WordPress (or PHP) function call

Benefits over traditional theme templates:

• Pre-loaded variables, ready to use

• Automatic template and markup generation

• Built-in template validation

This approach gives you the flexibility of hand-crafted templates while eliminating much of the complexity and repetitive work typically involved in coding.

1. Template engine setting

You can setup the default template engine in the plugin settings, and it'll be used for all the new Layouts and Post Selections.

Meanwhile, you can choose any template engine inside a particular item, as well as mix items with different template engines - e.g., create a Post Selection with Twig and choose the item Layout made with Blade.

This way, you can safely give a try to a new template engine, or gradually migrate the old codebase.

2. Template engines comparison

Feature	PHP	Twig	Blade
Minimum PHP version	-	7.4 (as WordPress)	8.2.0
Shortcuts support	partial	yes	yes
Output auto-escape	no	yes	yes
Available functions	any PHP	only built-in or registered	any PHP

2.1) PHP templates

<? foreach ($categories["value"] as $index => $term_item): ?>
    <a target="<?= esc_html($term_item["target"]); ?>" class="acf-view__categories-link" href="<?= esc_html($term_item["value"]); ?>">
        <?= esc_html($term_item["linkLabel"] ?: $term_item["title"]); ?>
    </a>
<? endforeach; ?>

Pros:

• well-known syntax

• full access to WordPress functions

• shortcuts for opening tags and control syntax

Cons:

• no output auto-escape

• verbose constructions

2.2) Twig templates

Twig is developed by the Symphony framework creators.

{% for index, term_item in categories.value %}
    <a target="{{ term_item.target }}" class="acf-view__categories-link" href="{{ term_item.value }}">
        {{ term_item.linkLabel|default(term_item.title) }}
    </a>
{% endfor %}

Pros:

• short and clean syntax

• output auto-escape

Cons:

• alternative construction and function names

• no access to WordPress functions (requires manual registration)

2.3) Blade templates

Blade is developed by the Laravel framework creators.

@foreach ($categories["value"] as $index => $term_item)
    <a target="{{ $term_item["target"] }}" class="acf-view__categories-link" href="{{ $term_item["value"] }}">
        {{ $term_item["linkLabel"] ?: $term_item["title"] }}
    </a>
@endforeach

Pros:

• short and clean syntax (with names matching PHP)

• full access to WordPress functions

• output auto-escape

Cons:

• requires PHP 8.2+