Quick Start

Quick Start

Five minutes from composer require to a rendered page.

1. Register an adapter

Nothing renders until an adapter is registered on the View facade. Do this once, during bootstrap:

<?php
declare(strict_types=1);
require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

use InitPHP\Views\Facade\View;
use InitPHP\Views\Adapters\PurePHPAdapter;

View::via(new PurePHPAdapter(__DIR__ . '/views'));

via() takes a ready-made adapter instance (what you almost always want), or the class name of an adapter that needs no constructor arguments. Calling the facade or the helper before registering an adapter throws a ViewException.

2. Render a view

The global view() helper queues the view, attaches the data and returns the output:

echo view('dashboard', ['username' => 'admin']);

views/dashboard.php:

<h1>Welcome, <?= htmlspecialchars($username) ?></h1>

Each data key becomes a local variable in the template. (Pure PHP does not auto-escape — escape untrusted values yourself.)

3. Render several views

A list of names renders in order and concatenates the output — perfect for a header/content/footer layout:

echo view(['header', 'content', 'footer'], ['title' => 'Home']);

The same data is available to every view in the batch.

4. Pass an array or an object

$data is an associative array, or an object whose public properties become the data:

$user = new stdClass();
$user->username = 'admin';
$user->roles    = ['editor', 'author'];

echo view('profile', $user);   // $username and $roles are available in the view

5. Switch the engine in one line

Because every adapter shares the same interface, moving from plain PHP to Blade is a one-line change at bootstrap — your view() calls stay the same:

use InitPHP\Views\Adapters\BladeAdapter;

View::via(new BladeAdapter(__DIR__ . '/views', __DIR__ . '/cache'));

// ...the rest of your code is unchanged.
echo view('dashboard', ['username' => 'admin']);

See the adapter pages for each engine: Pure PHP, Blade, Twig.

6. Without the helper

The helper is optional — the facade exposes the same workflow fluently:

echo View::setView('header', 'footer')
    ->setData(['title' => 'Home'])
    ->render();

You can also read merged data back:

View::setData(['title' => 'Home']);
View::getData('title');        // "Home"
View::getData('missing', '—'); // "—"
View::getData();               // ['title' => 'Home']  (everything)

What just happened

1. via() stored your adapter as the facade's active instance.
2. setView() queued the view name(s); setData() merged your data.
3. render() produced the output and then cleared the queue and data, so the adapter is clean for the next call.

Things worth knowing immediately

• State resets after every render. Two view() calls never leak into each other:

  echo view('a', ['x' => 1]);   // renders 'a' with x = 1
  echo view('b', ['x' => 2]);   // renders 'b' with x = 2 only

• Pure PHP adds .php for you. view('home') and view('home.php') both resolve to views/home.php. Twig is the exception — include the full file extension in the name (e.g. view('home.html.twig')).

• Missing views throw. A Pure PHP view file that does not exist raises a ViewException.

• Templates are sandboxed (Pure PHP). A view file sees only its data, never the adapter or $this. See Pure PHP Adapter.

Next steps

• The View Facade & Helper — the entry points in detail.
• Recipes — layouts, shared data, escaping, controller integration.
• API Reference — every public member.