Referring to plugin variables within your vBulletin 4 templates

Collapse
X
Collapse
 

  • Referring to plugin variables within your vBulletin 4 templates

    <style type="text/css"> <!-- @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } --> </style> Prior to vBulletin 4, you were able to refer to your plugin's variables exactly as you would refer to them within a standard PHP script. Due to the changes to the way vBulletin's templates work, this is no longer the case.

    Once you understand the new vBullein 4 template variable format, referring to your plugin's variables will be simple. Let's take a look at the new variable format by comparing some examples of how they look in vBulletin 3.8.X and vBulletin 4.

    Example 1
    In this example, we will assume that you have written a plugin that stores its data within the variable
    $myplugin_output. Using vBulletin 3.8.X, you could simply insert that variable within your templates and have the output display on the site.

    Within vBulletin 4, this same variable from your plugin would now be referenced as follows.

    {vb:raw myplugin_output}

    Within vBulletin 4, all of the new template variables appear like the above example. The
    raw portion indicates that this is a raw variable and the translation between $myplugin_output and {vb:raw myplugin_output} occurs automatically.

    Remember, you must still reference this variable as
    $myplugin_output within your plugin. It is only within the templates that the same variable needs to be referenced in the new format.

    Example2
    Say you store your variables as an array and one output variable within your plugin looks like $myplugin_var['output1'] or $myplugin_var[output1]. These variables are handled in the same way but with a slight variation. The following is how this same variable would be written within a vBulletin template.

    {vb:raw myplugin_var.output1}

    Again, you are using a raw vBulletin 4 variable. This time, the key within your array variable is called after the array name and the two are separated by a period. So these types of variables always follow the following format.

    $arrayName['key'] translates to {vb:raw arrayName.key}

    It's that simple. Once your get the formatting down, you will be able to reference your plugin variables without any issues just as you were able to within prior versions of vBulletin.

    Part Two:
    http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/entry...s-to-templates

    • David IB
      #15
      David IB commented
      Editing a comment
      Shon,

      Variable registration is discussed in the companion blog to this article. That blog entry is linked at the end of this one.

    • dfidler
      #16
      dfidler commented
      Editing a comment
      Originally posted by PitchouneN64ngc;bt7214
      Thanks. While I wasn't very clear in asking for it above, I was really hoping that we could perform object method calls in templates

    • john2k
      #17
      john2k commented
      Editing a comment
      I may have found somewhat of a bug, but it doesn't seem to really be much of a problem. By the way, thanks for making this blog post as it did help me with getting some things working again after upgrading to vB 4.0.3 from 3.8.5

      Ok, after pushing my variables into the templates as described on page two of this blog post I noticed that $myplugin_output and {vb:raw myplugin_output} both work, but not at the same time

      When used individually they both work fine.

      When used at the same time, once each, I would expect that the HTML within the variable to simply be echoed twice, but that is not what happens. In the case when they are both used at the same time, {vb:raw myplugin_output} works as intended, echoing the variable's HTML, while $myplugin_output simply echoes itself, "$myplugin_output"

      I don't need to use both but am reporting this as it does seem to be working in an awkward way.

      So, finally, when we can choose to use $myplugin_output or {vb:raw myplugin_output} within templates, which way is the correct way? Does it matter which option is used since they both work?
    Posting comments is disabled.

Related Topics

Collapse

Working...