vBulletin 4 Template Syntax: General

[Marco van Herwaarden]

The content of this article is also available in your vBulletin distribution in ./readme-syntax.html.

vBulletin 4 Template Syntax

vBulletin 4.0 introduces a rich new syntax for marking-up templates, reducing the need for formatting and escaping to be performed in .php files.

Note that once a template makes use of any vBulletin 4 template syntax, the old syntax will cease to operate for that template. Conversions must be an all-or-nothing affair.


Variable Access

Safe Variables

Going forward, variables should be referenced in templates wherever possible using the following syntax:

{vb:var variable}

Variables accessed in this manner are 'made safe' by being run through htmlspecialchars as they are output.

To access array elements, use a dot operator, rather than standard PHP square brackets:

{vb:var variable.foo} // accesses htmlspecialchars($variable['foo'])
{vb:var variable.$varkey} // accesses htmlspecialchars($variable[$varkey])

Raw Variables

To access variables in the normal, pre-vB4 fashion, use the following syntax:
{vb:raw variable}
This is equivalent to simply accessing $variable in the pre-vB4 syntax. No treatment is applied to the variable. The same dot operator is used to access array elements.

Curly-Brace Syntax

The general syntax here is
{vb:method arg1[, arg2...]}Inside curly braces, variables can be accessed without using a separate set of surrounding braces. For example,
{vb:method {variable}} // unneccessary extra braces
{vb:method variable}

Built-in Methods

phrase {vb:phrase phrase_name[, arguments for phrase...]} Inserts the specified phrase. If arguments are provided, they will be run through htmlspecialchars.

rawphrase {vb:rawphrase phrase_name[, arguments for phrase...]} As above, though arguments bypass htmlspecialchars.

Example: {vb:rawphrase message_by_x_on_y_at_z, {vb:link member, {vb:raw postinfo}}, {vb:raw postinfo.username}, {vb:raw postinfo.postdate}, {vb:raw postinfo.posttime}}

date {vb:date timestamp[, format]} Formats a UNIX timestamp using the default date format for the active language. A format may also be explicitly specified. Timezone will be corrected for the viewing user.

time {vb:time timestamp[, format]} As above, though uses the default time format instead of date format.

number {vb:number number[, decimals]} Outputs a number having run through vb_number_format for correct locale formatting. Number of decimal places to display can be optionally specified.

raw {vb:raw variable} Outputs the variable raw, without any formatting or escaping.

escapejs {vb:escapejs variable} Returns the variable prepared for use as a Javascript single-quoted string instead of running htmlspecialchars.

urlencode {vb:urlencode variable} Escapes the variable using urlencode.

if {vb:if condition, true[, false]} Use this in instances where the full <vb:if> tag can not be used, such as within HTML tags.

link {vb:link type, info[, extra-info]} Used to build a hyperlink URL of the specified type and into the correct 'friendly' format.

math {vb:math expression} Primarily used within CSS, this is used to evaluate the result of the mathematical expression specified.

stylevar {vb:stylevar name[.sub-part]} Used to output a style variable from the style system. No escaping is performed.

Tags

All tags make use of the vb namespace for ease of identification and parsing.

The following tags are available:

literal <vb:literal>misc code</vb:literal> Any code inside vb:literal tags will be treated as plain HTML. No curly-brace syntax or vb:tag markup will be evaluated.

if <vb:if condition="condition">true result</vb:if> If the expression specified in condition is true, the contents of the vb:if tags will be output, otherwise nothing will be output.

elseif <vb:elseif condition="condition" />true result Used in conjunction with vb:if, this allows a secondary condition to be checked and the true result to be output if the condition is met.

else <vb:else />true result Used in conjunction with vb:if, the true result will be output if the vb:if condition failed, and so did any vb:elseif checks.

comment <vb:comment>a comment</vb:comment> In cases where a comment is necessary but the usual <!-- comment --> syntax is undesirable, the vb:comment tag allows its contents to be completely removed upon compiling, so they will not be delivered to the browser. Useful for internal commenting.

each <vb:each from="array" key="key" value="value"></vb:each> This tag will iterate through an array, in a similar manner to foreach. See the example use below.

Example Use of vb:each

// We have an array of users available in PHP.
// It looks like this:
// $users = array(
// 1 => array('username' => 'Adam', 'email' => 'adam@adam.com'),
// 2 => array('username' => 'Ben', 'email' => 'ben@ben.com'),
// 3 => array('username' => 'Chris', 'email' => 'chris@chris.com')
// );

<!-- our template code... -->
<vb:each from="users" key="userid" value="userinfo">
<li><a href="member.php?u={vb:var userid}">{vb:var userinfo.username}</a></li>
</vb:each>
<!-- will output... -->
<li><a href="member.php?u=1">Adam</a></li>
<li><a href="member.php?u=2">Ben</a></li>
<li><a href="member.php?u=3">Chris</a></li>

[cellarius]

Some more verbose documentation of the new link-method would really be appreciated. For which types of pages is it operative, and what parameters can or have to be provided?

[Paul M]

Note that for "each" , the key part (in red) is optional.

<vb:each from="array" key="key" value="value">/*Do Something*/</vb:each>

[ragarcia87]

Has to be the worst template documentation ever. Basically this doc is a waste of time since there is soo little information in it. Not helpful what so ever, more of a hindrance since I wasted my time reading it instead of looking for a better resource. I would suggest you check out the Smarty template eninge's docs for what helpful docs look like.

[Antivirus]

Thanks Marco for taking the time to write this for us. I found it quite helpful.

[Trek]

Has to be the worst template documentation ever. Basically this doc is a waste of time since there is soo little information in it. Not helpful what so ever, more of a hindrance since I wasted my time reading it instead of looking for a better resource. I would suggest you check out the Smarty template eninge's docs for what helpful docs look like.

Feel free to write better documentation once you know what you're doing since you already know what good documentation is.

In the meantime, I found this helpful, thank you for writing it.

[ragarcia87]

Feel free to write better documentation once you know what you're doing since you already know what good documentation is.

In the meantime, I found this helpful, thank you for writing it.

Yea I would write helpful documention if they paid me, everyone here seems to forget this software costs money and has mabye 4 offical plugin + template docs released for a new plugin + template system compared to the likes of wordpress which is free and has more info than the average person will be able to take in.

{vb:urlencode variable}

Yet no mention of what format the variable is to be used, is it the $variable or is it just variable.

{vb:if condition, true[, false]}

No defination of the syntax for a condition, nor defination of what the out for true can be or how to format it. Same goes for

<vb:if condition="condition">true result</vb:if>

which I personnally have extreme trouble getting to work, tried "$array.value='text'","array.text=text","$array.value==text",etc basically every way possible to try and get it to work and constantly it fails and which documention like this to fall back on it's a joke. If this was a user submitted documention it wouldn't bother me but it's offical documention and one of the few offical documention I could find, hell http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/ doesn't even have version 4 docs there. The only thing that eases my pain on this subject is knowing it wasn't me that paid for the license.

[mbreezy]

I've tried multiple ways, but cannot seem to get it to output at all.

I'm trying to get some of the site stats variables from here (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=179930) to display, but to no avail.

I've tried a few ways...

{vb:var totalthreads}
{vb:var $totalthreads}
{vb:raw totalthreads}


Which combo is going to work?

Thanks

[cellarius]

1 or 3, depending on what's in the variable. But I doubt that that variable is available in globally, so you'd probably make a plugin to fill it and register it for the template you want to use it in.

[mbreezy]

Oh, okay. But I thought the variables listed in the vBulletin variable list (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=179930) were global.

[cellarius]

No, the site statistics variables were never globally available in vB3, plus: you're using vB4, as it seems, and there have been some significant changes on what is available where.

[SiteTalkZone]

While studying vb code is quite challenging and fun but at the same time this forum or vb itself is pathetic. Almost zero docs even for paying members. Woot!