JTS Server-side Templating

JTS (Javascript Template String) is a very basic server side template engine. Actually, to call it a template engine is rather generous--rather this was designed mainly to be a drop-in replacement for EJS on Express or Sails servers.

JTS merely uses the built-in template strings in ES6 which is available by default in Node versions 4 and up. It is built primarily for speed and will not have convenience features added that significantly impact speed.

Benchmarks are available in the benchmark folder to compare performance with your favorite templating engine. You can also view current observed results here.

More documentation and features to come.

Configuration

var JTS = require('jts');
var engine = new JTS({
  defaultLayout: 'layout.jts',
  layouts: 'path/to/layouts',
  cache: {
    max: 500,
    maxAge: 1000 * 60 * 5
  }
})

• defaultLayout: (optional) will attempt to render all templates in this layout. When a default layout is set, use _jts.layout('none') to prevent a template from being rendered in any layout.
• layouts: (optional) the relative path to all layouts. When a layout is requested JTS will attempt to load the file both from the path specified here as well as relative to the child layout if applicable.
• cache: Enable or disable template caching. Useful when developing locally. Only the compiled function will be cached so that cache is created only once for each template. Uses lru-cache behind the scenes and can be disabled completely by setting to false.

Using in Sails.js

The JTS engine can be used in Sails by modifying config/views.js:

var JTS = require('jts');
var engine = new JTS({
  defaultLayout: 'layout',
  layouts: 'views'
});

module.exports.views = {
  engine: {
    ext: 'jts',
    fn: engine.render,
  },
};

Using in Express.js

JTS is compatible with app.engine in Express:

var JTS = require('jts');
var engine = new JTS({
  defaultLayout: 'layout',
  layouts: 'views'
});

app.engine('jts', engine);

Layout support

Templates can request to be rendered in a layout by calling _jts.layout with the name of the template file. Only one parent layout is supported. The parent layout should include ${ body } to render the child.

String filtering

Basic string filtering is provided to sanitize potentially unsafe input. This can be called via _jts.s with the variable to sanitize.

Array mapping

An array can be mapped to HTML using the helper _jts.each.