Routing and Rendering

Routing-and-Rendering.md

Routing and Rendering

Route Structure

most pages are folder routes:

  • /feed -> feed/index.php + feed/content.html
  • /journal/posts/12 -> journal/posts/index.php
  • /settings -> settings/index.php + settings/content.html

static error pages are the main exception:

  • error/403/index.html
  • error/404/index.html
  • error/50x/index.html
  • error/wip/index.html

Upward File Lookup

most PHP routes define a local find_template_file() helper that walks up parent directories until it finds a requested file.

that means nested routes can still find:

  • template.html
  • template_mobile.html
  • content.html
  • lib/render.php
  • root-level assets or data paths

admin account pages use equivalent helpers in account/admin/helpers.php.

Standard Render Flow

typical route flow:

  1. start session
  2. optionally enforce auth/admin checks
  3. load render helper from lib/render.php
  4. choose template with get_preferred_template_name(__DIR__)
  5. load local content.html
  6. inject placeholders like {content}, wiki - routing and rendering, browse the internal developer wiki for fridg3.org.,
  7. optionally swap account footer button to logout when logged in

Homepage Special Case

root index.php is more dynamic than the wrapper routes.

it injects:

  • latest feed post from data/feed/*.txt
  • latest journal post from data/journal/*.txt
  • up to 3 music cards from data/music/frdg3/*.json

it also contains older bookmark-loading logic that still points at /data/users, which is legacy behavior and worth keeping an eye on.

Wrapper Routes vs Data Routes

wrapper routes are mostly just shell + static content:

  • discord/
  • merch/
  • parts of others/
  • many email status pages

data-backed routes do real work:

  • feed/
  • journal/
  • guestbook/
  • bookmarks/
  • music/
  • gallery/
  • account/*
  • api/*

WIP / Maintenance Behavior

maintenance mode is driven by data/etc/wip.

main.js:

  • loads the flag
  • shows the maintenance banner
  • redirects non-admins to /error/wip
  • allows /account/login and /error/wip

the admin bypass depends on either:

  • is_admin cookie
  • /api/account/is-admin

Page View Counting

page views are not baked in by PHP. the footer view count is hydrated by main.js, which posts the current path to /api/page-view.

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