Your application probably uses a common layout across most of its pages. Manually creating this layout within every controller action can be a pain. Specifying a controller layout will make your development much more enjoyable. Here's how to get started:
#### Specify a "layout" property on your controller:
class Base_Controller extends Controller {
public $layout = 'layouts.common';
}
#### Access the layout from the controllers' action:
public function action_profile()
{
$this->layout->nest('content', 'user.profile');
}
> **Note:** When using layouts, actions do not need to return anything.
<a name="sections"></a>
## Sections
View sections provide a simple way to inject content into layouts from nested views. For example, perhaps you want to inject a nested view's needed JavaScript into the header of your layout. Let's dig in:
#### Creating a section within a view:
<?php Section::start('scripts'); ?>
<script src="jquery.js"></script>
<?php Section::stop(); ?>
#### Rendering the contents of a section:
<head>
<?php echo Section::yield('scripts'); ?>
</head>
#### Using Blade short-cuts to work with sections:
@section('scripts')
<script src="jquery.js"></script>
@endsection
<head>
@yield('scripts')
</head>
<a name="blade-template-engine"></a>
## Blade Template Engine
Blade makes writing your views pure bliss. To create a blade view, simply name your view file with a ".blade.php" extension. Blade allows you to use beautiful, unobtrusive syntax for writing PHP control structures and echoing data. Here's an example:
Similarly, you can use **@render**, which behaves the same as **@include** except the rendered view will **not** inherit the data from the current view.
Not only does Blade provide clean, elegant syntax for common PHP control structures, it also gives you a beautiful method of using layouts for your views. For example, perhaps your application uses a "master" view to provide a common look and feel for your application. It may look something like this:
<html>
<ul class="navigation">
@section('navigation')
<li>Nav Item 1</li>
<li>Nav Item 2</li>
@yield_section
</ul>
<div class="content">
@yield('content')
</div>
</html>
Notice the "content" section being yielded. We need to fill this section with some text, so let's make another view that uses this layout:
@layout('master')
@section('content')
Welcome to the profile page!
@endsection
Great! Now, we can simply return the "profile" view from our route:
return View::make('profile');
The profile view will automatically use the "master" template thanks to Blade's **@layout** expression.
Sometimes you may want to only append to a section of a layout rather than overwrite it. For example, consider the navigation list in our "master" layout. Let's assume we just want to append a new list item. Here's how to do it:
**@parent** will be replaced with the contents of the layout's *navigation* section, providing you with a beautiful and powerful method of performing layout extension and inheritance.
