poggies

Poggies is a simple 0-dependencies HTML templating engine, with a very simple syntax.

!doctype(html)
html(lang=en-US) {
    head {
        title "Example Page"
        style {
            #header {
              text-align: center;
            }
            .red {
                color: red;
            }
        }
    }
    body {
        h1#header.red(onclick="alert('Hi')") "Hello World!"
        br
        span ":)"
    }
}

Usage

Using Poggies comes in two steps: Initializating a document and Rendering it.

You can initialize a document using new Poggies(<code>). After this, you can render the document using Poggies.render()

import { Poggies } from "poggies"
const hello = new Poggies('h1(class="red bold") "Hello World!"')
const html = await hello.render()
console.log(html)

This will log:

<h1 class="red bold">Hello World!</h1>

You can also use renderFile, which renders the contents of a file (hello.pog containing your poggies code, of course):

import { renderFile } from "poggies"
const html = await renderFile("hello.pog")
console.log(html)

Syntax

Poggies also supports JavaScript in the templates (and async/await syntax!)

To add dynamic elements to your page, you can use template strings!

h1(class="red bold") `six plus six is ${6+6}`

Which, when rendered, will evaluate to

<h1 class="red bold">six plus six is 12</h1>

You can also input variables into the rendering process! This is done by adding an extra argument into Poggies.render()!

// poggies
h1(class="red bold") `${first} plus ${second} is ${first+second}`

// js
const html = await hello.render({
	first: 12,
	second: 26,
})
console.log(html)

This will evaluate to

<h1 class="red bold">12 plus 26 is 38</h1>

Custom variables also work with renderFile of course,

await renderFile("hello.pog", { first: 12, second: 26 })

Styles & Scripts

For child content of styles and scripts, curly braces are allowed.

style {
  button {
    color: green;
  }
}
script {
  const button = document.querySelector("button")
  button.onclick = () => alert("Hi!")
}

With Scripts

You can use with script to easily attach a script to an element:

button "Click Me!" with script {
  setTimeout(() => {
    button.textContent = "Click Me!!!"
  }, 10_000)
}

With Scripts capture the element as its name (custom elements like my-timer get captured as myTimer), and its data- properties as dataset.

Event Handlers

You can use on:event as a shortcut to attach event listeners to an element.

button(data-counter=(0) on:click|preventDefault {
  dataset.counter += 1
  button.textContent = `Clicked ${dataset.counter} times!`
}) "Click Me!"

(inspired by svelte's on:event element directives, but without nonpassive)

Dynamic Elements

You can add Elements to the children of an object dynamically!

For example:

// wow.pog
div "For " {
  for(word of words) `${word} `
}
// js
const html = await renderFile("./wow.pog", {
	words: ["loops", "are", "cool"],
})
// html output
<div>For loops are cool</div>

If example:

// chance.pog
span {
  if(chance) "You got it!"
  else ":("
}

// js
const html = await renderFile("./chance.pog", {
	chance: Math.random() < 0.5,
})
// html output
<span>You got it!</span>
// or <span>:(</span>

Templates

Poggies supports templates, which allow for easier repetition of elements. To create a template, you can add $$ to the beginning of your element. For Example:

// declare the template with $$row
$$row(name thebest){
  tr{
    td.name `${name}`
    td(class=(thebest ? "thebest" : "notthebest")) {
      if(thebest) "The Best :D"
      else "Not the Best :("
    }
  }
}
table {
  for(user of users){
    // use the template with $row
    $row(name=(user.name) thebest=(user.thebest))
  }
}
// html output
<table>
	<tr>
		<td class="name">Esthe de Beste</td>
		<td class="thebest">The Best :D</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td class="name">John Doe</td>
		<td class="notthebest">Not the Best :(</td>
	</tr>
</table>

Slots

Templates can contain slots, which are a way to embed content from the template call site. Maybe an example would help:

$$centered_div {
  div(style="display: grid; place-items: center;") {
    div {
      // embed a slot with `slot!`
      slot!
    }
  }
}

$centered_div {
  h1 "Hi!"
}
// html output
<div style="display: grid; place-items: center;">
  <div>
    <h1>Hi!</h1>
  </div>
</div>

Slots can also have names:

// don't forget to name the slots by the parameters
$$red_and_blue(red blue) {
  div(style="color: red;") {
    // `slot!(name)` for named slots.
    slot!(red)
  }
  div(style="color: blue;") {
    slot!(blue)
  }
}

$red_and_blue(red={
  h1 "Red!"
} blue={
  h1 "Blue!"
})
// html output
<div style="color: red;">
  <h1>Red!</h1>
</div>
<div style="color: blue;">
  <h1>Blue!</h1>
</div>

Extras

• Poggies syntax supports # and . as shorthands for class and id! (They kind of look like CSS selectors) Example: h1#woah.red.bold "I'm red, I'm bold, and my ID is woah!"
• Attributes can have no value, just like in normal HTML! For example: h1(hidden) "You can't see me"
• If an attribute doesn't contain any spaces, you can insert it without quotes, a(href=https://example.com/) "like this!" PS, if it does contain a ), this won't work of course.
• Instead of a(href=(href)), you can also use a((href))!
• You can stack quotes and {}! For example, to put a line break in the middle of a span: span "Line 1" { br } "Line 2" ==> <span>Line 1<br>Line 2</span>
  • This same example can also be written span { "Line 1" br "Line 2" }, specifically because br is a void-element and can't have child nodes.
• renderFile caches files, so your poor CPU doesn't have to parse everything again! In a small test this lead to a huge ~3.6ms to ~0.015ms improvement!
• Poggies is deno-, node-, and browser-compatible!