diff --git a/src/Render/FriendicaSmarty.php b/src/Render/FriendicaSmarty.php
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..b863576127
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/Render/FriendicaSmarty.php
@@ -0,0 +1,54 @@
+<?php
+/**
+ * @file src/Render/FriendicaSmarty.php
+ */
+namespace Friendica\Render;
+
+use Smarty;
+
+define('SMARTY3_TEMPLATE_FOLDER', 'templates');
+
+/**
+ * Description of FriendicaSmarty
+ *
+ * @author benlo
+ */
+class FriendicaSmarty extends Smarty
+{
+	public $filename;
+
+	function __construct()
+	{
+		parent::__construct();
+
+		$a = get_app();
+		$theme = current_theme();
+
+		// setTemplateDir can be set to an array, which Smarty will parse in order.
+		// The order is thus very important here
+		$template_dirs = ['theme' => "view/theme/$theme/" . SMARTY3_TEMPLATE_FOLDER . "/"];
+		if (x($a->theme_info, "extends"))
+			$template_dirs = $template_dirs + ['extends' => "view/theme/" . $a->theme_info["extends"] . "/" . SMARTY3_TEMPLATE_FOLDER . "/"];
+		$template_dirs = $template_dirs + ['base' => "view/" . SMARTY3_TEMPLATE_FOLDER . "/"];
+		$this->setTemplateDir($template_dirs);
+
+		$this->setCompileDir('view/smarty3/compiled/');
+		$this->setConfigDir('view/smarty3/config/');
+		$this->setCacheDir('view/smarty3/cache/');
+
+		$this->left_delimiter = $a->get_template_ldelim('smarty3');
+		$this->right_delimiter = $a->get_template_rdelim('smarty3');
+
+		// Don't report errors so verbosely
+		$this->error_reporting = E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE;
+	}
+
+	function parsed($template = '')
+	{
+		if ($template) {
+			return $this->fetch('string:' . $template);
+		}
+		return $this->fetch('file:' . $this->filename);
+	}
+
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/src/Render/FriendicaSmartyEngine.php b/src/Render/FriendicaSmartyEngine.php
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..a565f3ad36
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/Render/FriendicaSmartyEngine.php
@@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
+<?php
+/**
+ * @file src/Render/FriendicaSmartyEngine.php
+ */
+namespace Friendica\Render;
+
+use Friendica\Core\Addon;
+
+class FriendicaSmartyEngine implements ITemplateEngine
+{
+	static $name = "smarty3";
+
+	public function __construct()
+	{
+		if (!is_writable('view/smarty3/')) {
+			echo "<b>ERROR:</b> folder <tt>view/smarty3/</tt> must be writable by webserver.";
+			killme();
+		}
+	}
+
+	// ITemplateEngine interface
+	public function replaceMacros($s, $r)
+	{
+		$template = '';
+		if (gettype($s) === 'string') {
+			$template = $s;
+			$s = new FriendicaSmarty();
+		}
+
+		$r['$APP'] = get_app();
+
+		// "middleware": inject variables into templates
+		$arr = [
+			"template" => basename($s->filename),
+			"vars" => $r
+		];
+		Addon::callHooks("template_vars", $arr);
+		$r = $arr['vars'];
+
+		foreach ($r as $key => $value) {
+			if ($key[0] === '$') {
+				$key = substr($key, 1);
+			}
+			$s->assign($key, $value);
+		}
+		return $s->parsed($template);
+	}
+
+	public function getTemplateFile($file, $root = '')
+	{
+		$a = get_app();
+		$template_file = get_template_file($a, SMARTY3_TEMPLATE_FOLDER . '/' . $file, $root);
+		$template = new FriendicaSmarty();
+		$template->filename = $template_file;
+		return $template;
+	}
+}