I need to find a template engine and/or a framework in PHP that lets me publish a website with one template, and reuse the template on other websites on the same server by making a child template, where I only override certain design elements from the parent template.
What I am looking for is speed of deployment – which template engine (PHP required) can I use to get the additional sites out there, the fastest?
As an example, I have websites to launch for various markets, in different categories. So I would create a UK site template that is the master template, then override details like the logo and static texts for the Swedish and French markets. Additionally, for different categories (such as Men’s Fashion vs. Women’s Fashion) I would need to override the images and colors of certain design elements (like pictures on the front page, and so on).
All of the sites I need to launch are based on the same API (RESTful JSON), and I need to be able to easily integrate a form for searching, sorting and filtering – so the template engine would have to allow for easy integration with variables…
Which solution would you suggest fit these requirements?
You could also look at Twig. Here is some more info on it and how it compares to the others: http://fabien.potencier.org/article/34/templating-engines-in-php