Using Plates in PHP - php

Question

I'm new to using Plates template library for PHP. I have a few questions about how to use it.
I'm looking through the docs I don't see a way to set a global layout. Is there not a way to do that?
I'm using it inside of Codeigniter. Ideally, I'd like to set the layout in the MY_Controller file for most of the site and change when needed in a controller extending MY_Controller; for instance, setting the main site layout and then for the admin panel setting the admin layout in the Auth_Controller that all of the other admin controllers extend.
Changing the layout of a particular set of templates I'd have to go through and edit all of those files. This doesn't seem ideal. Or even just passing a sidebar data for a particular layout has to be done by passing the sidebar data to each template and from each template to the layout in every file. This seems very redundant. Am I missing something?
To clarify Plates is the template system/library, http://platesphp.com/
Example of what I'm talking about.
The admin layout has a sidebar of all the admin URLs. This comes from a config file that's loaded and it has it's own template/view file.
I call the template and pass the data from the controller
// I created a library file that extends the Plates library so it can be easily loaded from the CI loader class
$data['sidebar_data'] = array(
'navigation'=>'Navigation',
'assets'=>'Assets',
'config'=>'Config'
);
$data['controller_name'] => 'Users';
$this->plates->render('admin/whatever_page', $data);
Inside of the template file/current page
<?php $this->layout('layouts/admin', ['title' => $controller_name, 'sidebar_data' => $sidebar_data])
// stuff for this page
?>
Inside of the sidebar navigation template that gets loaded in the admin layout file
<ul class="menu vertical">
<?php foreach($sidebar_data as $url => $label):?>
<li>
<?= $label ?>
</li>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</ul>
Then the layout
// there's a HEAD method in here that has the $title variable
<header class="row expanded collapse">
<div class="column">
<div class="top-bar">
<div class="top-bar-left">
<ul class="menu">
<li>
<strong>Site Name</strong>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="top-bar-right">
<ul class="menu dropdown align-right" data-dropdown-menu>
<li>
<?= $current_user ?></a>
</li>
<li class="divider"> | </li>
<li>
<?= $this->insert('auth/logout_form') ?>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</header>
<section id="content">
<div class="left-panel">
<?= $this->insert('adminnav', ['sidebar_data' => $sidebar_data])?>
</div>
<div class="main-panel">
<?= $this->section('content')?>
</div>
</section>
<div id="adminmodal" class="reveal" data-reveal>
<button class="close-button" type="button" data-close aria-label="Close modal">
<span aria-hidden="true">×</span>
</button>
<div class="modal-body"></div>
</div>
<script type="text/javascript">$(document).foundation()</script>
<?= $this->insert('_blocks/googleanalytics')?>
Having to pass the same data from every controller method to the controller's view/template then from that to the layout/other templates is very redundant.

Answer 1

Convert the array to json
for example:
$this->plates->render('admin/whatever_page', ["data" => json_encode($data)]);