=====Using JavaScript inside SMARTY Templates=====

<tip c n>**Update for v6:** The software now uses SMARTY 3, which handles this a little differently. In short, SMARTY now ignores any { characters that are immediately followed by whitespace. allowing JavaScript to parse them correctly. The practical upshot of that is that **most** scripts will now work without the below modifications. If not, or if you're not sure, it's always safe to make these changes anyway.</tip>

On occasion, it may be appropriate to add a block of JavaScript code to one of your template files. One of the most common uses of this is when adding Google Analytics to a site. There is one important caveat to be aware of: both JavaScript and SMARTY have different interpretations of the left-curly-brace character **'{'** -- if you try to insert JavaScript code containing {curly braces} into a SMARTY template file, SMARTY will attempt to interpret the braces as its own tags, which will usually break the JavaScript code.

There are a couple of ways around this. You can either replace all of the left-curly-braces in your Javascript with the {ldelim} tag, or you can simply wrap the entire javascript code in **{literal}{/literal}** SMARTY tags.

<tip c n>**Google Analytics Tip:**  If you are trying to use Google Analytics:  Edit the **footer.tpl** template file in the admin panel under **Design > Manager**.  Click on the **<..> Source Code Editor** tab.  Right before the end **</body>** tag, copy/paste in the Google Analytics code as provided by Google Analytics.  Right before it, add **{literal}**, and right after the code you pasted in, add **{/literal}**.  See below for examples of what it might look like when you are done.</tip>

We'll show the oft-offending piece of Google Analytics code here, by way of example. Google generally supplies the code like this:

<code html>
<script type="text/javascript">
try {
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("your_tracker_number_here");
pageTracker._trackPageview();
} catch(err) {} }</script>
</code>

To properly use that code snippet in a SMARTY template, you'll want to do something like this:

<code html>
{literal}
<script type="text/javascript">
try {
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("your_tracker_number_here");
pageTracker._trackPageview();
} catch(err) {} }</script>
{/literal}
</code>

Alternatively, the following will work just as well:


<code html>
<script type="text/javascript">
try {ldelim}
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("your_tracker_number_here");
pageTracker._trackPageview();
} catch(err) {ldelim} } }</script>
</code>