PHP Latte - multiple block with same name

Question

I am new to latte template engine and fiddle around with it since some days. I found a lot of nice and usefull things to make my projects easier and cleaner. But there is one thing I did not find or miss an idea how to handle it.

Lets imagine my sites has this basic layout template:

<header><h1>{$title}</h1></header>
<nav n:inner-foreach="$navigation as $link">
<a href="{$link->url}" n:class="$link->active ? active" n:attr="data-icon: $link->icon">{$link->name}</a>
</nav>
<aside>{include aside}</aside>
<aside>{include aside}</aside>
<aside>{include aside}</aside>
<content>{include content}<content>
<footer>{include footer}</footer>

the content is handled within another template for each site. every one of them looks like this:

{layout 'layout.tpl'}
{$navigation[3]->active=true}
{$title="this page title"}

{block content}
    <p>here comes the content</p>
{/block}

{block aside}
    <p>here is f.e. a sidebar</p>
{/block}

{block aside}
    <p>this is some adverticement</p>
{/block}

now my question is this: how can I use one or more blocks of "aside" within my template which are defined as "block". the best solution whould be something like: "block aside[]" and I handle it inside the main template somehow with a loop. Is there an usefull way to do it? I dont want to use it with variables like the navigation because the content is defined within the template.

thx for ideas and greetings Makka

Answer 1

Well, you could do something like, abusing dynamic block names:

{var $maxAside = 10}
{for $i = 0; $i < $maxAside; $i++}
  {ifset aside-$i}
    {include "aside-$i"}
  {else}
    {breakIf true}
  {/ifset}
{/for}

and define blocks like {block "aside-{++$i}"}…{/block} but I would not recommend this because it just adds pointless complexity.

Either, majority of the asides will be the same and then you could have just used a single aside block for them:

{block aside}
  <section>
    <p>here is f.e. a sidebar</p>
  </section>

  <section>
    <p>this is some adverticement</p>
  </section>
{/block}

Or you you will want to be distinguishing them somehow (e.g. styling them differently) and then you would assign them classes, at which point you can just use different blocks:

<aside class="sidebar" n:ifset="sidebar">{include sidebar}</aside>
<aside class="advertisement" n:ifset="advertisement">{include advertisement}</aside>

Unless you are matching them using :nth-child CSS selector. But that is fragile because you would now need to match the order to the one defined in the CSS.

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The problem only starts to become interesting when you have a hierarchy of pages where the pages inherit asides from pages in parent layers. But then it is still nicer to use template inheritance.