Overview of Quickform & Smarty templates

What is being talked about

• Quickform is a php package lets you generate a form entirely in php.
• Smarty is a templating engine that separates the style and logic, ie php and html, of a web page

Overview of QuickForm2

QuickForm2 lets you create web forms in a simple way, for me it's important features are:

• Create a form without the need to write html. Supports text fields, drop down lists, ...
• The form looks good & clean. I am a programmer, not an arty designer type
• Input field validation - a must to stop you putting rubbish into the database
• Input field validation can additionally be done in the browser - making it nicer for the user

QuickForm2 is part of Pear - the library written in php.

Overview of Smarty

Smarty is a templating engine that separates php code and the html template, ie you have the logic (php code) and the presentation (html template) in separate files.

• Coder and Designer maintain separate files, you don't mess up each other's work
• Coder and Designer can concentrate on what they are good at
• Common logic can be reused unchanged but with different templates look different, eg login pages on different sites
• Generated php and/or html can be cached, flexibly - you have a lot of control
• Smarty templates can contain presentation logic, eg loops - so display multiple rows from a database search
• Use multiple templates in the construction of one web (.html) file - eg have standard header/footer files

Smarty does not have to be used with QuickForm2.