Templates basic concepts
What’s in this topic
This topic discusses the main concepts of how default templates work in the Magento application.
How templates are initiated
Templates are usually initiated in layout files.
Each layout block has an associated template.
The template is specified in the template attribute of the <block> layout instruction.
For example, from <Magento_Catalog_module_dir>/view/frontend/layout/catalog_category_view.xml
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<block class="Magento\Catalog\Block\Category\View" name="category.image" template="Magento_Catalog::category/image.phtml"/>
This means that the category.image block is rendered by the image.phtml template, which is located in the category subdirectory of the Magento_Catalog module templates directory.
The templates directory of Magento_Catalog is <Magento_Catalog_module_dir>/view/frontend/templates.
The next section describes where templates can be located in general.
Conventional templates location
Templates are stored in the following locations:
- Module templates:
<module_dir>/view/frontend/templates/<path_to_templates> - Theme templates:
<theme_dir>/<Namespace><Module>/templates/<path_to_templates>
Here <path_to_templates> might have several levels of directory nesting, or might be empty. Examples:
<Magento_Catalog_module_dir>/view/frontend/templates/product/widget/new/content/new_grid.phtml<Magento_Checkout_module_dir>/view/frontend/templates/cart.phtml
Templates overriding
For template files with the same name, the following is true: theme templates override module templates, and those of a child theme override parent theme templates.
This mechanism is the basis of the template customization concept in Magento application: to change the output defined by a certain default template, you need to override one in your custom theme.
Overriding templates is described with more details in the Theme Inheritance article.
Root template
In Magento there’s a special template which serves as root template for all storefront pages in the application: <Magento_Theme_module_dir>/view/base/templates/root.phtml.
Unlike other templates, root.phtml contains the doctype specification and contributes to <head> and <body> sections of all pages rendered by Magento application. But similar to other templates, root.phtml can be overridden in a theme.
Getting argument values from layout
Arguments values set in a layout file can be accessed in templates using the get{ArgumentName}() and has{ArgumentName}() methods. There are more details in the Layout instructions article.
Related reading
