hyte

HYbrid TEmplating for the browser and Node. Using Hogan.js (based on mustache) as templating engine.

Installation

npm install
node server.js

You can now browse to http://localhost:3000/index.html for a demo.

Quick overview

The included server provides:

• All your pre-compiled templates at /compiled.js
• Pre-compile separate templates via /compile/[template]
• Server-side rendering of templates via /render/[template]/[encoded-endpoint-url]
• Render template server-side using POST data at /render/[template]

The hyte module can also be integrated stand-alone using this API:

• hyte.compile(template)
• hyte.compileAll()
• hyte.render(template, data, callback)
• hyte.renderFromEndpoint(template, url, callback)

On the client, pre-compiled templates can be rendered...

• var renderedTemplate = compiledTemplate.render(data);

...or just, when pre-rendered on the server...

• $('#placeholder).html(renderedTemplate);

Services

Running the server will give you services at http://localhost:3000 to:

Pre-compiled concatenated templates

All templates at /public/views/*.html are pre-compiled and concatenated to JS and available at /compiled.js. This file itself is also using a template: /public/views/compiled.template.mustache.

Example result for /compiled.js (object property keys directly taken from filename):

window.app.templates = {
	"list": new Hogan.Template(function(c,p,i){}),
	"paragraph": new Hogan.Template(function(c,p,i){})
};

This can then be used like this:

var data = {"message": "This is rendered client-side in a pre-compiled template"}
var html = app.templates['list'].render(data);
$('#placeholder').append(html);

Location: (GET) http://localhost:3000/compiled.js

Suggested usage: make sure the first and/or most used templates are pre-compiled like this.

Pre-compile separate templates

Pre-compiled templates are available at /compile/[template]. Compiled to JS in AMD style from /public/views/[template].html.

define(new Hogan.Template(function(c,p,i){}))

So you can use it like this:

require(['/compile/paragraph'], function(compiledTemplate) {
	var html = compiledTemplate.render({"message": "This is rendered client-side in a pre-compiled template"});
	$('#placeholder').append(html);
});

Location: (GET) http://localhost:3000//compile/[template]

Suggested usage: this usage can come in handy when the data is available client-side, and the template still needs to be fetched and compiled.

Render HTML completely server-side

By providing a reference to the template and a full URL to the data endpoint, this service returns pre-rendered HTML.

For example:

http://localhost:3000/render/paragraph/http%3A%2F%2Flocalhost%3A3000%2Fdata%2Fparagraph.json

returns an HTML string ready to be inserted in the page:

<p>This is data in a JSON resource</p>

For now, the data endpoint should deliver JSON that is tailored to the template (no intermediate parsing of data).

Location: (GET) http://localhost:3000/render/[template]/[encoded-endpoint-url]

Suggested usage: this is the best usage performance-wise, just make sure template and data (JSON) match directly.

Render POSTed data

Get pre-rendered HTML from server by providing reference to template and POST data (no processing client-side)

var data = {"message": "This is pre-rendered server-side"};
$.post('/render/paragraph', data, function(renderedTemplate) {
	$('#placeholder').append(renderedTemplate);
});

Location: (POST) http://localhost:3000/render/[template]

Suggested usage: the data is available client-side, but the compiled template is not.

Static server

Static files from /public are available from the root url. E.g. /index.html is served from /public/index.html.

Shouts / dependencies

Many thanks to anyone that contributed to the libraries used in this tool:

• Node
• Express
• Hogan.js