POOF is an "object oriented" PHP library that separates the Page Content, Layout and Application Logic in an object oriented fashion.
POOF is designed to give the web developer a framework for efficient and modular application development.
In POOF, the web application is set up in an object hiearchy. Each web page or directory is represented by a class. The web page inherits its parent class.
That means a child page will inherit the characteristics of its parent class. All web page classes inherit from a base web site class which inherits from the Page class in Page.class.php.
Parent classes provide the web page layout and functionality of the child classes. You can specify which variable the child page will be inserted into the parent page. The Default variable is "Content".
The layout of the page class uses a template. The template processor is the PHP language. You can write the template in a separate file or as a string to be processed.
To put a variable in the page, simply print the variable in PHP tags.
Of course all valid PHP can be used in a template. Since the templates are written in PHP, processing it is very fast and flexible.