README

A PHP library for creating HTML documents and DOM manipulation with an object-oriented approach.

Motivations

PHP's built-in DOMDocument works but has friction for HTML generation:

• Verbose — Creating a styled element with text takes 4-5 lines. This library does it in one: new HTMLNode('div', ['class' => 'x'])->text('hello')
• No chaining — DOMDocument returns void on most mutations. This library is fluent.
• HTML5 issues — DOMDocument is XML-based (libxml2), throws warnings on HTML5 tags, and mishandles void elements
• No templates — No built-in support for loading partial HTML with variable slots
• Limited output control — saveHTML() gives little control over formatting, quoting, or self-closing tags

This library's sweet spot is generating HTML from PHP — pages, emails, components — where a builder pattern and template system give better DX than the W3C DOM API.

This is a DOM builder, not a text-based template engine. If you need template inheritance, compiled templates, or a dedicated syntax (like Blade or Twig), use those instead. Use this library when you want to construct and manipulate HTML programmatically — server-rendered components, email generation, PDF markup, or any case where the structure is driven by logic rather than a layout file.

Table of Contents

• Key Features
• Supported PHP Versions
• Installation
• Quick Start
• Usage
  • HTML Document Creation
  • Working with Elements
  • Forms and Input
  • Tables and Data
  • Template System
• API Reference
• Testing
• Contributing
• License
• Support
• Changelog

Key Features

• Object-Oriented DOM Creation — Build HTML elements using intuitive PHP classes
• Template System — Support for both HTML templates with slots and PHP templates
• Iterator Support — Traverse child nodes using foreach loops
• Type Safety — Full type hints and comprehensive PHPDoc documentation
• Security First — Built-in HTML entity escaping in attribute values
• XML Support — Generate both HTML and XML documents
• Standalone Renderer — HtmlRenderer with per-instance config, safe for async contexts

Supported PHP Versions

Build Status

Installation

composer require webfiori/ui

Quick Start

<?php
require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';

use WebFiori\Ui\HTMLDoc;

$doc = new HTMLDoc();
$doc->getHeadNode()->setPageTitle('My First Page');
$doc->setLanguage('en');

$body = $doc->getBody();
$body->addChild('h1')->text('Welcome to WebFiori UI!');
$body->addChild('p')->text('Building HTML has never been easier.');

echo $doc;

Usage

HTML Document Creation

use WebFiori\Ui\HTMLDoc;

$doc = new HTMLDoc();
$doc->getHeadNode()->setPageTitle('My Application');
$doc->setLanguage('en');

$head = $doc->getHeadNode();
$head->addMeta('description', 'A powerful web application');
$head->addCSS('styles/main.css');
$head->addJs('scripts/app.js');

$body = $doc->getBody();
$body->addChild('header')->addChild('h1')->text('My Application');
$body->addChild('main')->addChild('p')->text('Main content here.');
$body->addChild('footer')->addChild('p')->text('© 2024 My App');

echo $doc;

Working with Elements

use WebFiori\Ui\HTMLNode;

// Create elements with attributes
$div = new HTMLNode('div', ['id' => 'main', 'class' => 'container']);
$div->addChild('p')->text('Hello World');

// Method chaining
$div->setAttribute('data-role', 'content')
    ->setStyle(['padding' => '1rem']);

// Iterate children
foreach ($div as $child) {
    echo $child->getNodeName();
}

Forms and Input

$form = $body->form(['method' => 'post', 'action' => '/login']);

$form->label('Username:');
$form->br();
$form->input('text', ['name' => 'username', 'required' => '']);
$form->br();
$form->label('Password:');
$form->br();
$form->input('password', ['name' => 'password', 'required' => '']);
$form->br();
$form->input('submit', ['value' => 'Login']);

Tables and Data

use WebFiori\Ui\HTMLTable;

$table = new HTMLTable(3, 4);
$table->getCell(0, 0)->text('Name');
$table->getCell(0, 1)->text('Email');

Template System

HTML templates with slots:

<!-- template.html -->
<div class="card">
    <h2>{{title}}</h2>
    <p>{{content}}</p>
</div>

$card = HTMLNode::fromFileAsNode('template.html', [
    'title' => 'My Card',
    'content' => 'Card body text'
]);

PHP templates with variables:

// template.php
<ul>
<?php foreach ($items as $item): ?>
    <li><?= htmlspecialchars($item) ?></li>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</ul>

$list = HTMLNode::fromFileAsNode('template.php', [
    'items' => ['Apple', 'Banana', 'Cherry']
]);

API Reference

Core Classes

Key Methods (HTMLNode)

Testing

cd tests
php ../vendor/bin/phpunit

Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please see our Contributing Guide for details.

1. Clone the repository
2. Install dependencies: composer install
3. Run tests: cd tests && php ../vendor/bin/phpunit
4. Check code style: composer fix-cs

License

This library is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.

Support

If you encounter any issues, please open an issue on GitHub.

Changelog

See Releases for version history.