Using View Templates in Emails. How to more easily apply templates? - php

Question

I've been able to load a view template and use it to create the body of an email message. The code is similar to the answer here:
How to render a mail template with layout in ZF2?
But now I'm looking to take this code and move it into a module that helps the rest of my application send emails. I'm thinking I would like to make it as easy/transparent as possible to use views for all emails.
So the basic question is, how can I setup the code to accept the information it needs to render a template and send the email?
I already have my transport information held inside the service locator, and sending email works fine. My primary concern is mostly the messy code needed for the template resolver:
$view = new PhpRenderer();
$resolver = new TemplateMapResolver();
$resolver->setMap(array(
'mail' => __DIR__ . '/../../../view/communication/email/new-project.phtml'
));
$view->setResolver($resolver);
I am alright with having all the *.phtml for emails held inside the new module. There's no need to send adhoc emails out of the application (we use communications internal to the application).
Is there a way to use the module.config.php 'view_manager' => 'template_map' and bypass the need to create a new resolver()? In that case I could setup the email code to accept the named template that should be in that map.
'view_manager' => array(
'display_not_found_reason' => true,
'display_exceptions' => true,
'doctype' => 'HTML5',
'not_found_template' => 'error/404',
'exception_template' => 'error/index',
'template_map' => array(
'layout/layout' => __DIR__ . '/../view/layout/layout.phtml',
'application/index/index' => __DIR__ . '/../view/application/index/index.phtml',
'error/404' => __DIR__ . '/../view/error/404.phtml',
'error/index' => __DIR__ . '/../view/error/index.phtml',
),

Answer 1

You simply have to access the default viewrenderer via the ServiceManager.
$viewRenderer = $this->getServiceLocator()->get('viewrenderer');
$mailView = new ViewModel();
$mailView->setTemplate('my-namespace/controller/mailtemplate.phtml');
$mailView->setVariables(array(
//k=>v paired data
));
$renderedOutput = $viewRenderer->render($mailView);
$mail->setBody($renderedOutput);
And that's pretty much it. Obviously though the concrete mail handling is stripped from this example, as you're mostly looking at another problem, given your description.