Smarty plug-in files and functions must follow strict naming conventions to be located
by Smarty. Smarty plug-in files must be named as type.name.php (in our case, function.load_
presentation_object.php), and the functions inside these files must be named as smarty_
type_name (in our case, smarty_function_load_presentation_object). The official page for
Smarty plug-ins naming conventions is http://smarty.php.net/manual/en/plugins.naming.
conventions.php. You can learn more about Smarty plug-ins at http://smarty.php.net/manual/
en/plugins.php.
After the Smarty plug-in file is in place, you can reference it from the Smarty design
template file (departments_list.tpl) with a line like this:
{load_presentation_object filename="departments_list" assign="obj"}
Given the correct naming conventions where used, this line is enough to get Smarty to
load the plug-in file, which at its turn will load the presentation object mentioned through
the filename parameter, and assign the loaded object to a template variable (in our example the
name of the variable will be obj). The Smarty design template file can then access the variables
populated by the plug-in function like this:
{$obj->mDepartments[i].name}
To understand how the whole mechanism works, let??™s create the departments_list componentized
template, and all the other pieces required to have it working.
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