Webdesign MVC - going in the right direction?

Question

I am trying to learn webdesign using the MVC design pattern. Right now, I am stuck at a point where my code gets more complex, and I am unsure about the structure and where to put which code parts.

I started with an index.php file as my controller, which right now does not much more than loading the Slim framework to render the different views

$app->get('/', function() use ($app){  
$app->render('header.php');  
$app->render('content.php');   
$app->render('footer.php');  
});  
$app->run();

Then I built a complex content.php where I do a lot of form data logic, reading from a server directory, and echoing the results mixed with html tags. That surely will violate the MVC pattern, right?

What is the general approach to this? Should I put all the logic inside the index.php, store the results in an array, and pass that to the framework's render function, like this:

$app->get('/', function() use ($app){ 

//Do something and store results in an Array

$app->render('header.php', anArray());  
$app->render('content.php', anArray());   
$app->render('footer.php', anArray());  
});  
$app->run();

How can I prevent index.php becoming too complex when doing so? Is there a different approach to take?

Answer 1

The trick is, you have to pass your variables into your object like this: $app->vars = $yourVars

Then if you include the files inside your render function the files works as part of your object and you can access your vars like this: $this->vars

Or you can also pass the vars as you thought $app->render('file.php', $yourVars)

That's the whole point of MVC you only pass specific variables to objects so they can't access all of them.