[FR] Site group-based templates

[hongc-cc]

Description

If there is only translation between localized site, we probably dont need to add new templates

templates/
├── account.twig      --> default site A account template, and works for both EN, DE, FR localization

But with multiple sites + localization,
Site A, Site B, Site C can have a large difference in page layout.
it becomes:

templates/
├── account.twig      --> default site A account template,  works for all EN, DE, FR localization
└── siteBen /
    └── account.twig  --> siteB EN account template
└── siteBde /
    └── account.twig  --> siteB DE account template
└── siteBfr /
    └── account.twig  --> siteB FR account template
└── siteCen /
    └── account.twig  --> siteC EN account template
└── siteCde /
    └── account.twig  --> siteC DE account template
└── siteCfr /
    └── account.twig  --> siteC FR account template

Can we make use of siteGroup concept, and workout something like this:

templates/
├── account.twig      --> all sites default account template,  works for all EN, DE, FR localization
└── siteGroupB /
    └── account.twig  --> siteGroupB account default template,  works for all EN, DE, FR localization
└── siteGroupC /
    └── account.twig  --> siteGroupC account default template,  works for all EN, DE, FR localization

[brandonkelly]

Seems reasonable!

[BenParizek]

Just to note it here. This sounds similar to the need we had for Site Groups with a plugin supporting multi-lingual sitemaps. Nice to see another use case appear for those Site Groups.

[naboo]

+1

Also give Site Groups some sort of handle. That is also set on the {{ currentSite }} global for use in twig.

[el-schneider]

+1

I would love to see this functionality implemented.

[WHITE-developer]

+1
Exactly in that situation right now, multiple sites with multiple languages which need slightly changes across the sites aka site groups.

[jan-dh]

Looking forward to this, wondering if there's a clean work-around in the current setup.

[jan-dh]

There's a PR for this

[zehfred]

Has anything changed since 2018? I'd like to have templates per site group as well. Can't find any info on the docs on how to accomplish this, so I suppose it hasn't been developed?

[brandonkelly]

Not yet. We would need to add handles to site groups for it to be possible.

[jan-dh]

There was a PR for this I think

[zehfred]

Thanks :)

[jannisborgers]

Just here to add my +1

We have a multi-site installation that will have two sites added annually from now on. 2020 in German and 2020 in English are already in place, now 2021 in both languages will be added. Templates will change across these two new sites, but they will be localized only between each other. If we have to duplicate the templates into de2021 and en2021 template folders, we'd be at 4 duplicates come 2022.

Due to it being legacy code, some tricks (like including/extending by site group) won’t work without me having to touch all the default (2020) code.

I’m looking for workarounds, but having a regular way to overwrite templates on a site group basis would solve it perfectly.

[jan-dh]

I'm looking at Craft 4 docs to see if anything has changed on this but as far as I can tell it has not?

[jan-dh]

So a small update, seems like the Craft 4.0 label was removed 10 days ago, had a look at the 5.0 roadmap but it isn't mentioned on it anywhere. Curious to see if this is something that's still on the radar. Was hoping to use this feature in some upcoming project. Some insights on timing and/or wether or not this is ever going to be implemented would be nice.

[brandonkelly]

It didn’t make the cut for 4.0 unfortunately. It’s in the backlog, but not planned for a specific release at the moment.

[jan-dh]

Thanks for the update

[Anubarak]

For anyone wanting this feature: you could as well just create a symlink for your other sites. That's what I usually do in that case

templates
├─ siteGroupTemplates
├─ SiteA -> symlink  to siteGroupTemplates
├─ SiteB -> symlink  to siteGroupTemplates

siteGroupTemplates contains all the real templates, SiteA and SiteB are just empty folders with a link to siteGroupTemplates

[brandonkelly]

Brilliant!

[jannisborgers]

This is what we did for the site I mentioned some months ago and it works fine, as long as you can create symlinks on the server. 👍

[brandonkelly]

We have decided not to implement this feature.

In addition to @Anubarak’s symlink-based solution, another way you can approach this is with a custom _siteGroup template root, defined by a bootstrapped module or private plugin:

use Craft;
use craft\events\RegisterTemplateRootsEvent;
use craft\helpers\StringHelper;
use craft\web\View;
use yii\base\Event;

Event::on(
    View::class,
    View::EVENT_REGISTER_SITE_TEMPLATE_ROOTS,
    function(RegisterTemplateRootsEvent $event) {
        $site = Craft::$app->sites->getCurrentSite();
        $group = StringHelper::toCamelCase($site->getGroup()->name);
        $event->roots['_siteGroup'] = Craft::getAlias("@templates/_siteGroups/$group");
    }
);

From there, create a templates/_siteGroups directory, and additional directories within there named after your site groups (camelCased).

templates/
└── _siteGroups/
    ├── groupA/
    │   ├── foo.twig
    │   └── ...
    └── groupB/
        ├── foo.twig
        └── ...

Your templates can then reference site group-specific templates via _siteGroup/foo.twig (no need to reference the site group itself).

[jan-dh]

Alternatively this would work as well I guess? Or any downsides in taking this approach? Performance?

Event::on(
    View::class,
    View::EVENT_BEFORE_RENDER_TEMPLATE,
    function (TemplateEvent $event) {
        $currentSite = Craft::$app->getSites()->getCurrentSite();
        $siteHandle = $currentSite->handle;

        // Get the site group
        $siteGroup = $currentSite->getGroup();
        
        if ($siteGroup) {
            $siteGroupHandle = $siteGroup->handle;
            
            // Construct the new template path
            $newTemplatePath = "_sites/{$siteGroupHandle}/" . $event->template;

            // Check if the new template exists
            if (Craft::$app->getView()->doesTemplateExist($newTemplatePath)) {
                $event->template = $newTemplatePath;
            }
        }
    }
);

[brandonkelly]

@jan-dh If you set up the custom template group as demonstrated, you would prefix your template paths with _siteGroup/ to access those templates.

So instead of _pages/section.twig, you would load _siteGroup/_pages/section.twig.

[jan-dh]

But wasn't that the whole point of this question, that you wouldn't need to adapt the actual section settings an you could just make a split based on a file system?

[brandonkelly]

@jan-dh To be clear, you would prepend _siteGroup/, and that would dynamically resolve to the folder named after the current site. So yes, a slight modification is needed, but that’s maybe a little cleaner than _siteGroups/{site.name|camel}/_pages/section.twig.

[jan-dh]

When reading the original proposal:

templates/
├── index.twig      --> all sites default index template,  works for all EN, DE, FR localization
└── siteA/
    └── index.twig  --> site A, works for site A
└── siteGroupB /
    └── index.twig  --> siteGroupB index default template,  works for all EN, DE, FR localization
└── siteGroupC /
    └── index.twig  --> siteGroupC index default template,  works for all EN, DE, FR localization

I was hoping something like this would be possible ☝️

1. Default to the site specific named folder (within template root)
2. Next, go looking in the siteGroup specific folder (thought the setup you showed with the module did something like this)
3. If no files are to be found there, look in the template root
   This would allow for a lot of flexibility & granular control in a multi-site setup. Reality is you sometimes have parts you need for site groups and sometimes you have parts you need specifically for sites. Doing all the if/else logic in the templates makes them very bloated.