Reusing views with partials

Yii supports partials, so if you have a block without much logic that you want to reuse or want to implement e-mail templates, partials are the right way to go about this.

Getting ready

1. Set up a new application using yiic webapp.

2. Create WebsiteController as follows:

   class WebsiteController extends CController
   {
      function actionIndex()
      {
         $this->render('index');
      }
   }

3. Set up a database using the following SQL:

   CREATE TABLE `user` (
     `id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
     `name` varchar(200) NOT NULL,
     `email` varchar(200) NOT NULL,
     PRIMARY KEY  (`id`)
     );

4. Use Gii to generate the User model.

5. Add some data to the user table.

How to do it...

We will start with a reusable block. For example, we need to embed a YouTube video on several website pages. Let's implement a reusable template for it.

1. Create a view file named protected/views/common/youtube.php and paste an embed code from YouTube. You will get something like the following:

   <object width...