How to display frontend plugin in different layouts in TYPO3? - typo3

Question

I have a TYPO3 frontend plugin and now I want two different ways to display the "list" controller. How can I achieve this?

Answer 1

You need to use flexform for frontend plugin like below.
In your ext_tables.php file.
//extenstion name
$extensionName = \TYPO3\CMS\Core\Utility\GeneralUtility::underscoredToUpperCamelCase($_EXTKEY);
//plugin integration
$frontendpluginName = 'Plugin name';
$pluginSignature = strtolower($extensionName) . '_'.strtolower(
$frontendpluginName
);
$GLOBALS['TCA']['tt_content']['types']['list']['subtypes_addlist'][$pluginSignature] = 'pi_flexform';
\TYPO3\CMS\Core\Utility\ExtensionManagementUtility::addPiFlexFormValue(
$pluginSignature,
'FILE:EXT:' . $_EXTKEY . '/Configuration/FlexForms/configure.xml'
);
Now create configure.xml file on this path /Configuration/FlexForms/
<T3DataStructure>
<sheets>
<!--
################################
SHEET General Settings
################################
-->
<sDEF>
<ROOT>
<TCEforms>
<sheetTitle>General</sheetTitle>
</TCEforms>
<type>array</type>
<el>
<!-- View -->
<settings.layout>
<TCEforms>
<label>Select Frontend Layout</label>
<config>
<type>select</type>
<items>
<numIndex index="0">
<numIndex index="0">Layout 1</numIndex>
<numIndex index="1">1</numIndex>
</numIndex>
<numIndex index="1">
<numIndex index="0">Layout 2</numIndex>
<numIndex index="1">2</numIndex>
</numIndex>
</items>
<size>10</size>
<minitems>0</minitems>
<maxitems>1</maxitems>
<suppress_icons>1</suppress_icons>
</config>
</TCEforms>
</settings.layout>
</el>
</ROOT>
</sDEF>
</sheets>
</T3DataStructure>
Now use this value in frontend template files like below.
<f:if condition="{settings.layout} == 1">
<f:then>
Layout 1 html
</f:then>
<f:else>
Layout 2 html
</f:else>
</f:if>

Answer 2

I haven't used this in a while so I am not 100% this is still relevant, the API docs suggest that you can still do this though:
public function listAction() {
{your_code}
$this->view->setTemplatePathAndFilename(
'typo3conf/ext/' .
$this->request->getControllerExtensionKey() .
'/{path_to}/OtherTemplate.html');
$this->view->assign(...);
}
If you need to switch this on a per plugin base decide which template to use by reading a configuration variable.