Webrium View

Lightweight PHP template engine with hybrid static caching (no eval, no DOMDocument) for the Webrium framework.

GitHub: https://github.com/webrium/view
Packagist: https://packagist.org/packages/webrium/view
Install: composer require webrium/view

Webrium View compiles your templates to plain PHP files, never uses eval, and is designed to play nicely with modern frontend frameworks (Vue, Alpine, Livewire, etc.) by leaving their attributes untouched.

Features

DOM-less streaming compiler – custom HTML parser, no DOMDocument, so attributes like @click, :class, x-data, wire:click, hx-get, etc. are preserved exactly as written.
Hybrid static cache – render a page once, save it as static HTML with a TTL, and serve the static file on future requests.
Directives – @{{ }}, @raw(), @json() / @tojs(), @php(), @php...@endphp, @section, @yield, @component.
Attribute-based control flow – w-if, w-else-if, w-else, w-for on normal HTML elements.
Fine-grained opt-out – w-skip to disable DOM-level processing in a subtree (useful when embedding another templating system).
Safe by default – escaped output for @{{ }}, explicit opt-in to raw HTML and raw PHP.

Requirements

PHP 8.1+

No extra PHP extensions are required; Webrium View uses only core functions.

Installation

1. Via Composer (recommended)

composer require webrium/view

Then bootstrap it in your project:

<?php

use Webrium\View\Engine;

require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

Engine::setViewDir(__DIR__ . '/views');                      // where your .php templates live
Engine::setStaticDir(__DIR__ . '/static');                   // where hybrid static files are written
Engine::setCompiledDir(__DIR__ . '/storage/view_compiled');  // where compiled PHP templates are stored

The directories will be created automatically if they do not exist.

2. Manual install (alternative)

If you prefer not to use Composer, copy Engine.php, View.php, and Parser.php into your project, keep the Webrium\View namespace, and load them via your own autoloader or simple require statements.

Quick Start

1. Simple render

views/hello.php

<h1>Hello @{{ $name }}!</h1>
<p>Today is @{{ $today }}.</p>

public/index.php

<?php

use Webrium\View\Engine;

require __DIR__ . '/../vendor/autoload.php';

Engine::setViewDir(__DIR__ . '/../views');

echo Engine::render('hello.php', [
    'name'  => 'Reza',
    'today' => date('Y-m-d'),
]);

2. Layout + section example

views/layouts/main.php

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <title>@{{ $title }}</title>
</head>
<body>
    <header>
        <h1>My Site</h1>
    </header>

    <main>
        @yield('content')
    </main>
</body>
</html>

views/pages/home.php

@section('content')
    <h2>Welcome, @{{ $userName }}</h2>
    <p>This is the home page.</p>
@endsection

public/index.php

<?php

use Webrium\View\Engine;

require __DIR__ . '/../vendor/autoload.php';

Engine::setViewDir(__DIR__ . '/../views');

echo Engine::renderLayout(
    'layouts/main.php',
    'pages/home.php',
    [
        'title'    => 'Home',
        'userName' => 'Reza',
    ]
);

Template Syntax & Directives

Webrium View uses a custom streaming HTML parser (not DOMDocument). It scans your HTML, rewrites special attributes and directives into plain PHP, and leaves everything else alone.

Escaped output – `@{{ ... }}`

Escaped output is the default. The $ sign is required:

<p>@{{ $user->name }}</p>
<p>@{{ $item['price'] * $qty }}</p>

Compiles to:

<?php echo htmlspecialchars($user->name, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8'); ?>

Works inside HTML attributes too:

<a href="/users/@{{ $user->id }}">@{{ $user->name }}</a>

Raw output – `@raw(...)`

Use raw output only when you are sure the content is safe (e.g. HTML you generated yourself):

<article>@raw($htmlContent)</article>

Compiles to:

<?php echo $htmlContent; ?>

Inline PHP – `@php(...)`

For short, single-line PHP expressions:

@php($count = count($items))
@php($user = Auth::user())

Compiles to:

<?php $count = count($items) ?>
<?php $user = Auth::user() ?>

PHP blocks – `@php ... @endphp`

For multiline PHP code, use the block form. @php and @endphp must each appear alone on their line:

@php
$active  = array_filter($products, fn($p) => $p['stock'] > 0);
$total   = array_sum(array_column($active, 'price'));
$taxRate = 0.09;
@endphp

<p>Total: @{{ $total }}</p>
<p>Tax: @{{ $total * $taxRate }}</p>

Compiles to:

<?php
$active  = array_filter($products, fn($p) => $p['stock'] > 0);
$total   = array_sum(array_column($active, 'price'));
$taxRate = 0.09;
?>

Both @php(...) and @php...@endphp can be used in the same template. To disable all @php directives for security reasons:

Engine::allowRawPhpDirective(false);

Any use of @php(...) or @php...@endphp after that will throw a ViewTemplateException.

JSON / JavaScript – `@json(...)` and `@tojs(...)`

Both directives are equivalent and produce json_encode'd output:

<script>
    const items = @json($items);
    const user  = @tojs($user);
</script>

Works inside attributes as well:

<div data-config="@json($config)"></div>

Layouts – `@section`, `@endsection`, `@yield`

Child view

@section('content')
    <h2>Dashboard</h2>
    <p>Hello @{{ $user->name }}!</p>
@endsection

Layout

<body>
    @yield('content')
</body>

Available helpers in Webrium\View\View:

View::startSection($name);
View::endSection();
View::yieldSection($name, $default = '');
View::clearSections();

Components – `@component(...)`

<div class="card">
    @component('components/user-card.php', ['user' => $user])
</div>

Or call it directly from PHP:

$html = Engine::component('components/user-card.php', [
    'user' => $user,
]);

Loops – `w-for`

Put w-for directly on the HTML element you want to repeat. The syntax follows PHP's own foreach:

<ul>
    <li w-for="$items as $item">
        @{{ $item['name'] }}
    </li>
</ul>

With key:

<ul>
    <li w-for="$items as $key => $item">
        @{{ $key }}: @{{ $item['name'] }}
    </li>
</ul>

Both compile to standard PHP foreach / endforeach blocks:

<?php foreach ($items as $key => $item): ?>
    <li>...</li>
<?php endforeach; ?>

The collection can be any PHP expression:

<tr w-for="$user->orders() as $order">...</tr>
<tr w-for="array_slice($rows, 0, 10) as $row">...</tr>

Conditionals – `w-if`, `w-else-if`, `w-else`

Put w-if directly on the element you want to show or hide:

<p w-if="$user->isAdmin">
    You are an admin.
</p>
<p w-else-if="$user->isModerator">
    You are a moderator.
</p>
<p w-else>
    You are a regular user.
</p>

Compiles to:

<?php if ($user->isAdmin): ?>
    <p>You are an admin.</p>
<?php elseif ($user->isModerator): ?>
    <p>You are a moderator.</p>
<?php else: ?>
    <p>You are a regular user.</p>
<?php endif; ?>

w-if and w-for can be combined on the same element. The if wraps the foreach:

<li w-if="$showList" w-for="$items as $item">@{{ $item }}</li>

Disabling processing in a subtree – `w-skip`

Add w-skip to any element to disable DOM-level processing for that element and all its descendants:

<div w-skip>
    <!-- w-for and w-if inside here are NOT compiled — they are left as-is -->
    <span w-if="$cond">raw attribute, untouched</span>
</div>

Behavior:

w-if, w-for, w-else-if, and w-else inside this subtree are not converted to PHP.
The w-skip attribute itself is removed from the final HTML.
Inline directives such as @{{ $something }} still work in text nodes.

Useful when embedding another frontend framework's syntax:

<div w-skip>
    <button v-if="isAdmin" @click="doSomething">Vue button</button>
    <div x-data="{ open: false }">Alpine component</div>
</div>

`<script>` / `<style>` behavior

Contents are treated as raw text, not parsed as nested HTML:

By default, inline directives inside <script> / <style> do work.
Add w-skip directly on the tag to emit the contents completely verbatim.

<!-- directives work inside -->
<script>
    const user = @json($user);
</script>

<!-- w-skip: everything inside emitted as-is -->
<script w-skip>
    const tpl = "@{{ this is not compiled }}";
</script>

Hybrid Static Cache

Signature:

Engine::hybrid(
    string $view,
    string|array $key,
    array|callable|null $dataOrFactory = null,
    ?int $cacheTtl = null
);

Cache TTL constants

use Webrium\View\Engine;

Engine::CACHE_NONE;
Engine::CACHE_A_MINUTE;
Engine::CACHE_AN_HOUR;
Engine::CACHE_A_DAY;
Engine::CACHE_A_WEEK;

You can also override the default TTL:

Engine::setDefaultHybridCacheTtl(Engine::CACHE_A_DAY);

// or disable default TTL (TTL must be explicit in each hybrid() call)
Engine::setDefaultHybridCacheTtl(null);

Mode 1 – Direct data (always re-render)

$html = Engine::hybrid(
    'pages/home.php',
    'home',
    [
        'title' => 'Home',
        'user'  => $user,
    ],
    Engine::CACHE_AN_HOUR
);

Mode 2 – Lazy factory (only run when needed)

$html = Engine::hybrid(
    'pages/home.php',
    'home',
    function () use ($db, $userId) {
        $user = $db->getUserById($userId);
        return [
            'title' => 'Home',
            'user'  => $user,
        ];
    },
    Engine::CACHE_AN_HOUR
);

The factory is called only when no valid cache exists or the cache has expired.

Mode 3 – Read-only access

$content = Engine::hybrid('pages/home.php', 'home', null);

if ($content === false) {
    $content = Engine::render('pages/home.php', ['title' => 'Home', 'user' => $user]);
}

echo $content;

Returns false if no valid (non-expired) cache exists.

Directory Helpers & Clearing Caches

Engine::setViewDir(__DIR__ . '/views');
Engine::setStaticDir(__DIR__ . '/static');
Engine::setCompiledDir(__DIR__ . '/storage/view_compiled');

// Remove all static HTML cache files
Engine::clearStatics();

// Remove all compiled template files
Engine::clearCompiled();

Error Handling

try {
    echo Engine::render('pages/home.php', ['user' => $user]);
} catch (\Webrium\View\ViewTemplateException $e) {
    // template compilation error
} catch (\Webrium\View\ViewException $e) {
    // general runtime error
}

ViewException covers bad directories, missing view files, and I/O failures.
ViewTemplateException covers invalid w-for / w-if syntax, unclosed tags, unmatched directive parentheses, unclosed @php blocks, and disabled @php usage.

Editor.js Integration

Webrium View includes a built-in parser that converts Editor.js JSON output to clean HTML.

Supported block types

Block type	Output
`paragraph`	`<p>`
`header`	`<h1>`–`<h6>`
`list`	`<ul>` / `<ol>`
`nestedList`	Nested `<ul>` / `<ol>`
`image`	`<figure><img></figure>`
`quote`	`<blockquote>`
`code`	`<pre><code>`
`table`	`<table>` with optional `<thead>`
`delimiter`	`<hr>`
`embed`	`<iframe>` wrapper
`warning`	Alert `<div>`
`raw`	Verbatim HTML pass-through
`checklist`	`<ul>` with checkboxes
`linkTool`	Anchor card with optional image
`attaches`	Download link with file size
`personality`	Author card

Basic usage

use Webrium\View\EditorJs\EditorJsParser;

$parser = new EditorJsParser();
$html   = $parser->parse($json); // JSON string or pre-decoded array

Then render it in a template:

<article>
    @raw($content)
</article>

Full example:

use Webrium\View\Engine;
use Webrium\View\EditorJs\EditorJsParser;

Engine::setViewDir(__DIR__ . '/views');

$parser  = new EditorJsParser();
$content = $parser->parse($jsonFromDatabase);

echo Engine::render('pages/article.php', compact('content'));

Custom CSS classes

$parser = new EditorJsParser([
    'paragraph' => ['class' => 'prose-p'],
    'header'    => ['class' => 'article-heading'],
    'image'     => [
        'figureClass'     => 'image-wrap',
        'class'           => 'article-img',
        'captionClass'    => 'image-caption',
        'borderClass'     => 'image--bordered',
        'stretchedClass'  => 'image--stretched',
        'backgroundClass' => 'image--background',
    ],
    'quote' => ['class' => 'pullquote', 'captionClass' => 'pullquote__author'],
    'code'  => ['class' => 'code-block', 'codeClass' => 'language-php'],
]);

Registering custom block handlers

$parser->registerBlock('alert', function (array $data, array $config): string {
    $type    = htmlspecialchars($data['type'] ?? 'info', ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8');
    $message = htmlspecialchars($data['message'] ?? '', ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8');
    return "<div class=\"alert alert--{$type}\">{$message}</div>\n";
});

Inline HTML sanitization

By default the parser allows common inline tags and strips everything else. To disable sanitization:

$parser = new EditorJsParser(config: [], sanitize: false);

Note: The raw block type always passes HTML through as-is, regardless of the sanitize flag.

Notes

Webrium View does not use eval; compiled templates are normal PHP files that are required.
All data passed into render() is available both as individual variables ($user, $title, etc.) and as a $zogData array inside the template.

License

MIT

Contributing

Open issues and pull requests on GitHub. Ideas, bug reports, and feature suggestions are very welcome.

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Webrium View

Features

Requirements

Installation

1. Via Composer (recommended)

2. Manual install (alternative)

Quick Start

1. Simple render

2. Layout + section example

Template Syntax & Directives

Escaped output – @{{ ... }}

Raw output – @raw(...)

Inline PHP – @php(...)

PHP blocks – @php ... @endphp

JSON / JavaScript – @json(...) and @tojs(...)

Layouts – @section, @endsection, @yield

Components – @component(...)

Loops – w-for

Conditionals – w-if, w-else-if, w-else

Disabling processing in a subtree – w-skip

<script> / <style> behavior

Hybrid Static Cache

Cache TTL constants

Mode 1 – Direct data (always re-render)

Mode 2 – Lazy factory (only run when needed)

Mode 3 – Read-only access

Directory Helpers & Clearing Caches

Error Handling

Editor.js Integration

Supported block types

Basic usage

Custom CSS classes

Registering custom block handlers

Inline HTML sanitization

Notes

License

Contributing

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Languages

Escaped output – `@{{ ... }}`

Raw output – `@raw(...)`

Inline PHP – `@php(...)`

PHP blocks – `@php ... @endphp`

JSON / JavaScript – `@json(...)` and `@tojs(...)`

Layouts – `@section`, `@endsection`, `@yield`

Components – `@component(...)`

Loops – `w-for`

Conditionals – `w-if`, `w-else-if`, `w-else`

Disabling processing in a subtree – `w-skip`

`<script>` / `<style>` behavior

Packages