What's the practical way to load header and footer

[eluser]Armchair Samurai[/eluser]
The basic one I use for simple sites is to have a template view file which is set up something like this:

Code:

<?php
/* The view file: template.php */

$this->load->view('includes/'.empty($header) ? 'header' : $header);
$this->load->view($content);
$this->load->view('includes/'.empty($footer) ? 'footer' : $footer);

?>

Then just call the content from the controller:

Code:

/* In your a controller function */

$this->load->vars(array(
    'content' => 'myview',
    'var' => 'foo',
    'other_var' => 'bar',
));
$this->load->view('template');