[Technical] Minz_View/FreshRSS_View don't allow extensions to declare views variables

Technical issue

Since PHP 8.2, dynamic properties are deprecated. Unfortunately, Minz_View relies heavily on them to declare variables accessible in the views. I guess FreshRSS_View was added to resolve this problem.

Problem is: extensions that add new controllers/actions cannot declare new view variables with these classes.

Solution 1

Let the extensions declare their own View class with their own variables.

Advantage: variables are well defined with their types, the code is more robust.
Downside: from a developer point of view, the experience is pretty poor and I would bet that a lot of extensions will break with PHP 8.2.

Solution 2

Allow Minz_View to accept dynamic properties. There are three solutions (c.f. PHP.Watch):

• use the #[AllowDynamicProperties] attribute (introduced in PHP 8.2 so this is not an actual option)
• extends the stdClass (the easiest solution)
• declare __set and __get magic methods

Advantage: it doesn't break the current extensions API and it's easy for developers to create their own view variables.
Downside: we lose the type hinting.

Solution 3

We could combine solution 2 with the actual FreshRSS_View class by adding the magic methods to it.
The core variables would still benefit from type hinting, while extensions variables would be stored in an array of variables.

Advantage: it combines both advantages of previous solution.
Downside: I think it's quite complicated/weird for new developers to understand why some variables are type hinted while being optional.

IMO

I would go with solution 2, with the magic methods variant as it makes the behaviour more explicit.

What do you think?