Views

Views are files that will be build into static HTML files. Capro uses the Blade template engine, known from Laravel.

Directories

In the views directory, there's three reserved subdirectory names:

• Pages (views/pages/) - for "regular" pages. E.g. views/pages/about.blade.php will be built to domain.tld/about/.
• Collections (views/collections/) - for static blade collections, e.g. blog post, news, etc. Where each collection view is a *.blade.php file.
• View Templates (views/templates) - can be used to build data objects into pages, using a specific template. E.g. json data from an API. See View Templates.

By default all pages and collections are built to the public directory, unless the core.disable_build: true is set in the YAML Front Matter of the view.

Other than that, you are free to create the directories you need.

YAML Font Matter

You can add YAML Front Matter to your views, but only the views inside the above directories. You cannot add YAML Front Matter to a layout or other "subviews". It is completely optional to use.

The YAML is set at the top of a view, and will be available as variables to the view itself, layout, subviews (includes, etc.) and the Capro fluent interface.

Example of YAML Front Matter in the index page view views/pages/index.blade.php

---
default_title: Welcome!
core.disable_build: true
---

Pages

To create a new page, simply add a new file in the views/pages directory, e.g. views/pages/about.blade.php

Example:

---
title: "About Me"
---

@extends('layouts.master')

@section('main')
	<h1>About</h1>
	...
@endsection

The page will be built to public/about/index.html and can be linked to just as domain.tld/about/

When using @extend() and @include() the root directory will be set to views/, so if you want to get a view from an include folder, e.g. views/layouts.matser.blade.php you can refer to it as 'layouts.master'.

Collections

Collections are a great way to group views, the best example is probably for blog posts. If we were to make blog posts as pages, they would not be grouped together, and it will be harder to show related blog posts, generate RSS feeds, list blog posts, etc.

Collections don't need any configuration to work; all you need to do is create a view. Let's create a new views/collections/blog/hello-world.blade.php in the blog collection.

---
title: "Hello World!"
---

@extends('layouts.blog_layout')

@section('main')
	<h1>Hello World!</h1>
@endsection

If you want to create collections with data from an API, you can use View Templates.

Difference Between a Page and a Collection?

As you can see, pages and collections look very alike. So what is the difference exactly?

The main difference is the URL; a collection will always have the collection name added to the URL.

• A page view views/pages/contact.blade.php will be available at domain.ltd/contact/.
• A blog collection view views/collections/posts/2024-01-01-hello-world.blade.php will be available at domain.tld/posts/2024-01-01-hello-world/.

In the Capro class pages have their own "group", and each collection will be in their own group. To get all pages call Capro::pages()->get(), and to get all views from a "posts" collection call Capro::posts()->get()