The working principle is really simple:
- all the frontend is made of html pages
- all the backend is made of php objects
- the html pages have some html comments that pull dynamic data from the php objects
For example say you want to display a cooking recipe in a page. Its really easy:
<html>
<body>
<!-- render.recipes.the_recipe -->
<h1>
<!-- print.title -->Some recipe title<!-- /print.title -->
</h1>
<h2>
<!-- print.name -->Author Name<!-- /print.name -->
<!-- print.@href.author_link -->
<a href='http://example.com'>Author Name's website -></a>
<!-- /print.@href.author_link -->
</h2>
<p>
<!-- print.description -->
The recipe description Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
<!-- /print.description -->
</p>
<h3>Ingredients</h3>
<ul>
<!-- print.ingredients -->
<li>
<!-- print.ingredient -->
Item 1
<!-- /print.ingredient -->
<!-- print.qty -->
20 oz
<!-- /print.qty -->
</li>
<!-- /print.ingredients -->
<!-- remove -->
<li>Item 2</li>
<li>Item 3</li>
<li>Item 4</li>
<!-- /remove -->
</ul>
<!-- /render.recipes.the_recipe -->
</body>
</html>on the server side you'd have a simple php class that looks in the db and gets the recipe. You need to return an array of data:
<?php
class recipes
{
function the_recipe()
{
// get the recipe from the db
// ...
// lets say we dont have a db
return array(
array(
"title"=>"Chocolate cake",
"name"=>"Mark Markuson",
"author_link"=>"http://markusoncooking.com",
"description"=>"Best cake you've ever had",
"ingredients"=>array(
array(
"ingredient"=>"chocolate",
"qty"=>"40 oz"
),
array(
"ingredient"=>"milk",
"qty"=>"80 oz"
)
)
)
)
}
}
?>Aside from this MVC pull structure Spartan offers some other features to help you implement web applications in an easy manner:
- form handling with custom validation, auto table management for CRUD or auto form filling with data
- a nice way of managing database querries with no orm but with an object oriented approach
- support for custom routing
- partials to keep your app dry