Creating custom PHP tags

[Radix]

I'm making a news script for people who don't know PHP.

I've noticed on forums like this you can use vB codes. How could I create a system to where all a user would have to do is type something like [NEWS TAG] or [AUTHOR TAG] and with that the NEWS or AUTHOR entry from my MySQL database could appear instead of using a bunch of nasty PHP/SQL codes.

This is similar to Server-Side Includes but if possible I don't want to have to have users install additional server software or make server modifications.

[NeuX]

You may want to think about installing Smarty. It's a PHP template engine.

http://smarty.php.net

I'd read through the documentation and tutorial to see if it fits what you're looking for.
Sean.

[elToro]

There's a much simpler templating engine described in the book Web Application Development with PHP 4.0 and included on that book's CD. Unfortunately, the code doesn't seem to be available on the Web.

I only mention this because Smarty (and even FastTemplate) can seem a bit daunting if your needs are fairly simple. Smarty is very complex (albeit powerful). It sounds to me like the templating system from that book does almost exactly what you're describing.