prim

Pure Recursive Interface Markup

Natural and extensible interface markup for the web.

Prim is a new and extremely fast templating language that implements only the most intuitive and natural concepts of interface structure, allowing for developers to efficiently create platform-agnostic user interfaces.

Bearing a simple syntax and leaving out specific rules like img tags are self-closing, Prim achieves maximum performance and readability. The simple, unopinionated design of Prim allows for a healthy balance between recyclability and output transparency.

Prim is great for creating web applications. The parser returns a plain HTML string that can be treated as a reusable atomic DOM node. It plays well with client-side MVC frameworks such as AngularJS and Backbone, and servers like Express (Node.js).

Prim may be implemented in the future as an interface language for software beyond web applications.

Table of Contents

• Installing
• Browser
• Server
• Documentation
  • Basic
  • Combinations
  • Multiplexing
• Testing
• Todo/Roadmap to v1.0

Installing

To use as a module on your server:

npm install --save primjs

To use the client runtime, download the latest build from git HEAD.

Browser

In your HTML, link to your Prim runtime:

<script src="/js/prim.js"></script>

Now you can convert Prim to HTML:

prim.parse('div(class="article") { p |Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet| }');
// '<div class="article"><p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet</p></div>'

You can also define a Prim template in your head:

<script id='primbody' type='text/x-prim'>
	div(class='container-fluid') {
		br/
		div(class='panel panel-default') {
			div(class='panel-heading') |Prim|
			div(class='panel-body') |Natural, fat free, and extensible interface markup for the web.|
			div(class='panel-footer') {
				a(href='https://github.com/edge/prim') |Get it now|
			}
		}
	}
</script>

And grab the text to use as a template:

body.append(prim.parse($('#primbody').text()));

Congratulations! You've made your first page in Prim.

Server

npm install --save primjs

var prim = require('primjs');

prim.parse('div(class="article") { p |Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet| }');
// '<div class="article"><p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet</p></div>'

Documentation

Prim is whitespace-agnostic.

Basic

identifier creates an HTML element with identifier as tag name

div

<div></div>

identifier/ creates a self closing HTML element with identifier as tag name

img/

<img />

identifier(attributes...) creates an HTML element with identifier as tag name and attributes as attributes

div(ng-app='myApp')

<div ng-app='myapp'></div>

identifier { nodes... } creates an HTML element with identifier as tag name and nodes as child elements

div {
	span
	hr/
}

<div><span><span><hr /></div>

#{ code } creates a virtual HTML element with the return value of code as contents

#{ Math.log(Math.E) }

1

#{ code } object creates a virtual HTML element with the return value of code as contents, using second object as context

prim.parse(template, { user: 'Steve', id: '306' });

#{ user } ':' #{ id }

Steve:306

"string" creates a virtual HTML element with string as contents

"Hello"

Hello

identifier | content | creates an HTML element with identifier as tag name and content as raw text

div |Hello|

<div>Hello</div>

End of Markup (%) short circuits template and automatically closes all levels of nesting

div { div { div { 'Hello'%

<div><div><div>Hello</div></div></div>

Combinations

Self-closing element with attributes

input(type='text' placeholder='Username')/

<input type='text' placeholder='Username' />

Mixed elements and strings

prim.parse(template, { user: 'Username' });

div {
	'Welcome back, '
	div(id='name' class='username') { #{ user } }
	button |Log Out|
}

<div>Welcome back, <div id='name' class='username'>Username</div><button>Log Out</button></div>

Multiplexing

Nodebuilding

Children, property, and attribute segments can be concatenated, allowing for more templating flexibility.

div (attr='someattr' ref='someref') { div div } (data='somedata') |Text| { span }

<div attr='someattr' ref='someref' data='somedata'><div></div><div></div>Text<span></span></div>

EOM

Because the EOM character resets the parse tree to the first node to the beginning of the current parse stream, it makes it easy to concatenate templates.

div { div { div { 'Hello'%span { span { span { 'Hello'%

<div><div><div>Hello</div></div></div><span><span><span>Hello</span></span></span>

Testing

npm install -g testem
npm test

Todo/Roadmap to v1.0

• Embed templates in code (allowing for conditionals and looping)
• Compiled templates
• Generate README docs directly from code
• Create Gulp plugin
• Create React plugin
• Add badges
• Catch Jison up to PEG
• Write Atom/Sublime syntax package
• Implement "prim strict mode"