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Template Layouts

Overview

In addition to embedding templates within each other, you can also create shared layouts for your templates. A layout can be thought of as a wrapping template or a reverse embed. To use a template you use the {layout=""} tag at the top of your template:

{layout="template_group/template"}

Where “template_group” is the name of the group and “template” is the name of the template. You must include both the template group and the template name in the layout tag. For example:

{layout="site/wrapper"}

This uses the wrapper template in the site template group as a layout for the current template. In the layout itself, you must now specify a location where the template contents will be shown using the layout:contents tag:

{layout:contents}

Note: The layout tag must come before any module or plugin tags.

Watch an introduction to template layouts:

Simple Example

The most common usage for layouts is to provide the skeleton structure of your site. With embeds, this can be done with using a header and footer embed on each template:

{embed="site/_header"}

{exp:channel:entries channel="news"}
  <h2>{title}</h2>
  {summary}
{/exp:channel:entries}

{embed="site/_footer"}

With a “site/_header” template:

<html>
  <head>
    <title>News Site</title>
  </head>
  <body>

And a “site/_footer” template:

</body>
</html>

As you add more code to your header and footer templates this approach can become a little messy. With layouts, we can define our header and footer in a single template called “site/_html-layout” in this example:

<html>
  <head>
    <title>News Site</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    {layout:contents}
  </body>
</html>

You can now write the main template using a single layout tag instead of two embeds:

{layout="site/_html-layout"}

{exp:channel:entries channel="news"}
  <h2>{title}</h2>
  {summary}
{/exp:channel:entries}

Notice that the layout is a hidden template. This lets you prevent direct access to the layout template, which is most likely not useful to your users on its own.

Layout Variables

Dynamic Variables & Lists

You can set variables in your templates that can later be used in your layouts. For instance you can set the contents of the page title tag, or breadcrumb navigation, sidebar content, etc. The content can be set in one of three ways, depending on how you need to use it in your layout:

{layout:set}

Setting a variable works similarly to setting a string variable in a programming language, like JavaScript. The contents are set to the variable name you provide. In your template:

{layout:set name='title'}My Page Title{/layout:set}

And then in the layout, wherever you need to use this variable, reference it by name, e.g. {layout:title}:

<title>{layout:title}</title>

{layout:set:append}

Appending a variable creates lists, and is similar to setting an array in a programming language, like JavaScript. Use this tag in a loop, when you want to capture the contents as individual items:

{exp:channel:entries channel='news'}
  {layout:set:append name='titles'}{title}{/layout:set:append}
{/exp:channel:entries}

And then in the layout, wherever you want to display the variable, use a tag pair, and loop through the values with the {value} variable:

{layout:titles}
  {value}<br>
{/layout:titles}

Like most pair variables, you have access to {count}, {total_results} as well:

{layout:titles}
  {if count == 1}
    <ol>
  {/if}

  <li>{value}</li>

  {if count == total_results}
    </ol>
  {/if}
{/layout:titles}

{layout:set:prepend}

Prepending a variable works identical to {layout:set:append} above, except the new item gets pushed to the front of the list instead of added to the back.

Using Layout Lists Together

Sometimes it is helpful to be able to reference a specific item in a list, such as when you have set multiple layout variables with corresponding content. As a simple example, pairing URLs with titles:

{exp:channel:entries channel='news' limit='5'}
  {layout:set:append name='titles'}{title}{/layout:set:append}
  {layout:set:append name='urls'}{url_title_path='news/story'}{/layout:set:append}
{/exp:channel:entries}

Then you can use them in the layout like so:

{layout:urls}
  <li><a href="{value}">{layout:titles index='{index}'}</a></li>
{/layout:urls}

Notice how you only have to loop through one of the lists, and to output the correct counterpart from another list, we simply reference them by index. Every looping list will output its current index, and every list variable can reference a single item from its own list with the index= parameter:

{layout:list_variable index='3'}
Example: Breadcrumbs

In this more verbose example, we use this basic idea to set a list of URLs and corresponding titles for use in HTML and JSON-LD breadcrumbs. In your template you might use:

{layout:set:append name='breadcrumb_urls'}{path='overlanding'}{/layout:set:append}
{layout:set:append name='breadcrumb_titles'}Overlanding{/layout:set:append}
{layout:set:append name='breadcrumb_jsonld_positions'}2{/layout:set:append}

{layout:set:append name='breadcrumb_urls'}{path='overlanding/kitchens'}{/layout:set:append}
{layout:set:append name='breadcrumb_titles'}Kitchens{/layout:set:append}
{layout:set:append name='breadcrumb_jsonld_positions'}3{/layout:set:append}

We now have 3 items in each list, and the URL, titles, and JSON-LD ListItem position correspond to each other in each list. In our parent layout we can now use these lists to create both sets of breadcrumbs:

<ul class="crumbs">
  <li><a href="{homepage}">Home</a></li>
  {layout:breadcrumb_urls}
    <li><a href="{value}">{layout:breadcrumb_titles index='{index}'}</a></li>
  {/layout:breadcrumb_urls}
</ul>

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "BreadcrumbList",
  "itemListElement": [
    {
      "@type": "ListItem",
      "position": 1,
      "item": {
        "@id": "{homepage}",
        "name": "Home"
      }
    }
    {layout:breadcrumb_urls}
      ,{
        "@type": "ListItem",
        "position": {layout:breadcrumb_jsonld_positions index='{index}'},
        "item": {
          "@id": "{value}",
          "name": "{layout:breadcrumb_titles index='{index}'}"
        }
      }
    {/layout:breadcrumb_urls}
  ]
}
</script>

Resulting in:

<ul class="crumbs">
  <li><a href="https://example.com">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="https://example.com/overlanding">Overlanding</a></li>
  <li><a href="https://example.com/overlanding/kitchens">Kitchens</a></li>
</ul>

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "BreadcrumbList",
  "itemListElement": [
    {
      "@type": "ListItem",
      "position": 1,
      "item": {
        "@id": "https://example.com",
        "name": "Home"
      }
    }
    ,{
      "@type": "ListItem",
      "position": 2,
      "item": {
        "@id": "https://example.com/overlanding",
        "name": "Overlanding"
      }
    }
    ,{
      "@type": "ListItem",
      "position": 3,
      "item": {
        "@id": "https://example.com/overlanding/kitchens",
        "name": "Kitchens"
      }
    }
  ]
}
</script>

Static Variables

For static content, short words, etc. that are defined directly in the template, and not from a variable, there are two shortcuts available. In the layout tag itself you can use parameters to pass additional data to your layout template:

{layout="site/_html-layout" login_required="yes"}

In your layout this will be available as a {layout:login_required} variable:

{if layout:login_required == 'yes' && logged_in_member_id == 0}
  {embed='site/_login-modal'}
{/if}

Or you can use the {layout:set} static-variable shortcut:

{layout:set name='login_required' value='yes'}

Note: The {layout:set} tags are not output on the template itself, since they are intended to be output on the parent layout. If you need the contents to also display inside the {layout:contents}, you must output it separately.

Note: Using {layout:set} in a looping tag pair will set the layout variable with the last item in the loop. Layout variables can be intentionally overwritten this way, but is something to be mindful of.

Important: The name contents is reserved for the template data.

Expanded Example

The previous example can be made more dynamic by using layout variables. Your layout can now respond to the template that it is wrapping. For example, you could use variables to dynamically update the browser window’s title:

<html>
  <head>
    <title>Site Name{if layout:title != ''} | {layout:title}{/if}</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    {layout:contents}
  </body>
</html>

By using a conditional we have made the title parameter optional. If the parameter is not given, or is blank, the title will simply be “Site Name”. Any template using this layout can choose to add to the output of the title tag using the parameter. You can even take it a step further. After setting a default section title in the parameter you can override it dynamically based on what your template is currently showing:

{layout="site/_html-layout" title="News"}

{exp:channel:entries channel="news"}
  <h2>{title}</h2>

  {if total_results == 1}
    {body}
    {layout:set name="title"}News | {title}{/layout:set}
  {if:else}
    {summary}
  {/if}
{/exp:channel:entries}

Your title for this template will now show “Site Name | News” unless a single news entry is being displayed, in which case it will show a more user friendly title of “Site Name | News | Article Title”. Unlike header and footer embeds, this can all be done using a single Channel Entries loop which will improve the overall performance of this template.

Nesting and Embeds

Nested Layouts

Each template on your site can only specify a single layout. However, each layout can also use a layout, thus progressively nesting your template. For more complex sites this allows you to have a single HTML wrapper and still take advantage of layouts to build out the different sections of your site.

Layouts and Embeds

Layouts and embeds can be used together to create complex template hierarchies. When building nested template structures you should keep your layouts general and avoid nesting embeds or layouts too deeply. A good implementation will be easy to read and easy to follow. This will make your site more maintainable and it will help you spot performance bottlenecks more quickly.

It is important to understand how layouts and embeds can affect each other. Layouts are processed before embeds, so that setting a layout variable inside an embed cannot affect the layout of the embedding template. If an embed is using a layout, then the embed will be wrapped by that layout before being placed in the embedding template. Setting a layout variable inside the embed will be usable by the embed’s layout and that layout will have full access to the variables passed to the embed.

Read Embed Variables Set Embed Layout Variables Set Parent Layout Variables
Embedded Template Yes Yes No
Parent Template – No Yes
Embed Layout Yes – No
Parent’s Layout No No –

Complex Example

Putting all of these together lets you create flexible page layouts with multiple dynamic sections. This example will add a sidebar and footer to the news example above.

We will keep the existing “site/_html-layout” from before, with a small addition to allow for additional JavaScript and CSS to be set from the template:

<html>
  <head>
    <title>Site Name{if layout:title != ''} | {layout:title}{/if}</title>

    <link rel="stylesheet" href="/assets/global.css" type="text/css" />
    {layout:css}
  </head>
  <body>
    {layout:contents}
    {layout:js}
  </body>
</html>

For the news section we will now have a separate layout that defines the structure of a given news page. Let’s call it “news/_layout”:

{layout="site/_html-layout"}
{layout:set name="title"}News{if layout:title != ''} | {layout:title}{/if}{/layout:set}

{layout:set name="css"}
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="/assets/news.css" type="text/css" />
{/layout:set}

<div id="wrapper">
  <div id="main">
    {layout:contents}
  </div>

  <aside>
    {layout:sidebar}
  </aside>
</div>

Our news homepage “news/index” will use the news layout to show a list of recent entries and also provide a search box in the sidebar. We will use an embed for the search and come back to it later:

{layout="news/_layout" title="Recent"}

{exp:channel:entries channel="news" limit="30" dynamic="no"}
  <h2><a href="{url_title_path='news/article'}">{title}</a></h2>
  {summary}
{/exp:channel:entries}

{layout:set name="sidebar"}
  {embed="news/_embed-search"}
{/layout:set}

We will use the “news/article” template to display the full article and change the sidebar to show an article list in addition to the search:

{layout="news/_layout"}

{exp:channel:entries channel="news" require_entry="yes"}
  {layout:set name="title" value="{title}"}

  <h1>{title}<h1>
  {body}
{/exp:channel:entries}

{layout:set name="sidebar"}
  {embed="news/_embed-search"}
  {embed="news/_embed-recent-articles"}
{/layout:set}

For each element in the sidebar we will have a small piece of wrapping code in a layout, “news/_sidebar-layout”:

<div class="sidebar-item">
  <header>{layout:header}</header>
  {layout:contents}
</div>

Now we can create “news/_embed-search” using the Simple Search Form tag:

{layout="news/_sidebar-layout" header="Search"}

{exp:search:simple_form channel="news"}
  <input type="search" name="keywords" maxlength="100">
  <input type="submit" value="Submit">
{/exp:search:simple_form}

And “news/_embed-recent-articles”:

{layout="news/_sidebar-layout" header="Recent Articles"}

<ul>
  {exp:channel:entries channel="news" limit="10" dynamic="no" disable="custom_fields"}
    <li>{title}</li>
  {/exp:channel:entries}
</ul>

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