Yireo Template Helper

Developing Joomla! templates involves more than just webdesign. To develop flexible templates you also need some extra PHP-logic, for which the Joomla! Framework provides good libraries. But some tasks require a solid understanding of this framework. That's why we have compiled various PHP-functions together in one library: The Yireo Template Helper library.

There are various templating tools for Joomla! on the market: But templating clubs like RocketTheme, YooTheme and JoomlArt have copyrighted their libraries, making it difficult to include their functionality in your own Joomla! template. Our library solves this problem.

This software is only for webdevelopers with PHP-experience

Template Helper functions

• getSplitMenu: build custom split-menus without modules
• getActiveParent: get the active parent menu-item
• hasModule: detect whether a certain module is loaded on the current page
• countModules: count the modules on a certain position, but exclude empty modules
• isHome: detect if the current page is the Joomla! default homepage
• addGlobalTitle: add your own string to every page title
• setGenerator: add a new META-generator (sitename is automatically set as default)
• getSitename: shortcut to get the current sitename
• loadCustomLanguageFile: load a custom language file (templates/XYZ/language/en-GB/en-GB.custom.ini)
• isBrowser: shortcut for browser detection (IE6, IE7, IE8)
• isDebug: shortcut for browser detection (argument is a single IP or an array of IPs)
• addCssPhp: combine multiple CSS-stylesheets to a single HTTP request

Use cases

• Custom split-menus with the parent-name as menu-title
• CSS aggregation for optimal performance
• Special layout on the Joomla! homepage
• Advanced templating layouts

Usage

The ZIP-file we offer contains the following files:

• yth.php: The main library with the PHP-class Yth
• css/css.php: Helper-script for combining CSS-stylesheets to a single HTTP request
• example.php: Code samples for usage in your own index.php file

The functions in the main library should be fairly easy to use. The file example.php gives you some PHP-code to work with. Further suggestions are given in our Joomla! Templating tutorials.

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