Extending HTML::Template, how to do it?

[techcode]

I've been using combination of CGI::Application, HTML::Template and few other modules for quite some time.

But I need to ajust it a bit to match my needs. And I would like to add a new template tag - similar to TMPL_INCLUDE. But it would not include other template files, but output of some object.

Kind of, if it finds say <-- TMPL_PLUGIN NAME="some_name" --> it will require some_name.pm; and then call it's method, say output.

I've been looking into filters for HTML::Template, but simply couldnt make it work for anything. Even some simple thing like any other regex that normaly works ...

Eventialy I will want to change CGI::App (or create something similar) to add this functionality and also strip of a need to define wich methods are OK to be run_modes. Idea that I have is simply alow any sub whose name doesnt start with _.

[mpeters]

Have you asked these questions on the HTML::Template list? You could probably get a few really good ideas from them. In the meantime, you should look at HTML::Template::Expr which will let you execute functions inside of your templates. You could probably do something like

use HTML::Template::Expr;

HTML::Template::Expr->register_function(
  execute => sub {
    shift->run();
  }
);

then in your template

  <tmpl_var expr="execute(some_object)">

I would also suggest you look at CGI::Application::Plugin::AnyTemplate as well.

Eventialy I will want to change CGI::App (or create something similar) to add this functionality and also strip of a need to define wich methods are OK to be run_modes. Idea that I have is simply alow any sub whose name doesnt start with _.

Look at CGI::Application::Plugin::AutoRunMode for something very similar that uses method attributes to designate a sub as a run mode. But I really think that using a leading '_' on a method a really bad idea. It would be completely counter-intuitive to what any other perl programmer would think since it's tradition for '_' to make private methods.

[techcode]

No I havent asked it on HTML::Template's mailing list. Will check out. But also your solution seems quite interesting and quite simpler than what I was thinking - probably even faster :)

But I really think that using a leading '_' on a method a really bad idea. It would be completely counter-intuitive to what any other perl programmer would think since it's tradition for '_' to make private methods.

Well that's the general idea, and it depends in the way you look at it. In some way, it is private - as that it shouldnt be able to execute it as run_mode. But will think about some other notation.

I also tougth to implement few other things (sessions, some sort of DB abstraction that I wrote and few more things) in an all-in-one convinient module/framework

Currently I just want this done for myself as I have few projets comming (last semester project, and disertation project, few sites I want to do) and dont have time to write this for the public - not to mention that I dont have knowlege (testing, documentation ...etc) to put it on CAPN (and obviosly no time to learn it).

I just found CGI::Builder, seems nice, will check out that first - before I start writing myown framework ;)

[mpeters]

Honestly if you're interested in frameworks, then you should really look at what's happening in the CGI::Application world at this time. It has a new plugin/callback system and if you look at CPAN you'll see lots of new plugins including one for session integration.

And if those aren't enough for you, there is a soon to be arriving CGI::Application::Framework. And if that still isn't enough for you, I'd look at Catalyst.

[dragonchild]

I've been playing with Catalyst this week and I have found it compares very favorably to CGI::Application in terms of functionality and capabilities. It wins big in that it promotes the use of Class::DBI and Template Toolkit, which are the richer offerings in their respective categories.

The only reason, in my opinion, to use CGI::Application over Catalyst is that CGI::Application has a longer track record. If that isn't a big factor for you, use Catalyst.