Determining which template to use

[saint]

Hi all,

 

I am new, so please bear with me.  I am having some difficulty figuring this out.  What I would like to do is use PHP to determine which template I should serve based on certain criterions of an item in the database.  For example, if I add a certain article and it is associated with an item (ex: a movie), I would like to serve up a template where it would have movie-specific information on the page (ex: name of movie, genre, length of time, etc.).  On the other hand, if the article I add is not associated with an item, then it would use a _different_ template without all the specific information.

 

My best guess so far is to have some PHP code that uses an if-else loop on the article to see if the "associated item" field is filled out.

 

The question is, how should I go about implementing this?  Are there any other methods better than the above?  Any help would be appreciated.  Thanks!

[dj-kenpo]

are the articles stored in a database? if so, add an extra row to the table called 'type'. on your edit page use a drop down for movie, etc.

 

then when the page loads do a call for different css files depending on the reults of 'type'.

[saint]

Yes, the articles would be stored in a database.  I don't mean to change the template based on a type (ex: movie, music, games), but more based on the association between the article and its parent item.  So instead, would I be able to adapt this to the following:

 

Ex: When I add an article, instead of 'type', the row or column is called something like 'parent_item' and it would be the name of the movie.  Then when the page loads, I call for template-1.php if the 'parent_item' field is populated.  If it is not populated, I call for template-2.php (both are arbitrarily named).

 

When you "call" and filter based on the results of 'parent_item', do you mean use of if-else statements in the PHP code?