#Skin

A non-MVC framework.

Skin is a framework to allow module authors to tightly couple their view logic with their code, while maintaining a very easy and straightforward way to disable them or overwrite them, or use any templating engine.

Skin is not meant to be used on the front-end, or in production. It is meant to propose temporary, easy to use templates, that should be compiled and written to disk before production usage

Why?

Several reasons:

1. Prototyping: How about adding a field to your object and be able to just render the object, no files attached, no need to choose a templating engine, etc?
2. Object-oriented dom: Easily add or remove a node, add/remove classes, change tags, on all instances or a single instance, without creating new templates, and without regex.
3. Permission-based view: present the same data in an editable text box or a non-editable paragraph, depending on variables that you decide

TL;DR:

Skin.register('gallery',{
	children:{
		gallery:{
			tag:'div'
		,	classes:'gallery'
		,	value:'a gallery'
		}
	}
})

var description = Skin.parse(
	'.description\n'
+	'	h3.title(style="background:red;border:1px solid black") {{title}}\n'
+	'	span.text {{text}}'
);

description.children.title.attr.style.background='#ccc'
description.children.text.attr.style = {'font-size':'90%'};

Skin.extend(description,'gallery');

descriptionFn = Skin(description);

console.log(descriptionFn.styles());
console.log(descriptionFn())

produces (line returns added for clarity):

.description .title{
	background:#ccc;
	border:1px solid black;
}
.description .text{
	font-size:90%;
}

<div class="description">
	<h3 class="title">{{title}}</h3>
	<span class="text">{{text}}</span>
	<div class="gallery">a gallery</div>
</div>

How does it work?

This is a skin object describing a lightbox:

var lightbox = {
	tag:'div'
,	classes:['ImageBox']
,	style:{
		width:400
	,	height:300
	,	background:'#ccc'
	,	'border-color':'1px solid white'
	}
,	children:{
		TheImage:{
			tag:'img'
		,	id:'TheImage'
		,	attributes:{
				src: http://lorempixel.com/400/200"
			,	style:{
					'background-image':'url(loader.gif)'
				}
			}
		,	value:'this will be the alt property of the image'
		}
	,	description:{
			tag:'div'
		,	classes:'description' //you don't have to enclose it in an array
		,	style:{
				'font-size':'100%'
			}
		,	value:'some nice description'
		}
	,	close:{
			tag:'a'
		,	classes:['button','close']
		,	attributes:{
				'href':'#'
			,	style:'position:absolute;top:0;left:0'
			}
		,	value:'x'
		}
	}
}

If this is too cumbersome, the following will output the same result:

var eol = '\n';
var text = 
	 'div.ImageBox(width="400" height="300" style="background:#ccc;border-color:1px solid white")'+eol
	+'	img#TheImage(src="http://lorempixel.com/400/200" style="background-image:url(loader.gif)") this is the alt text'+eol
	+'	div.description(style="font-size:110%") This is a very nice image'+eol
	+'	a.close.button(href="#" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0") x';
var lightbox = Skin.parse(text);

Once you've done that, you can extend your skin:

Skin.extend(lightbox,{
	children:{
		description:{
			tag:'h3'
		,	attr:{
				classes:['big']
			,	style:{
					'font-size':'200%'
				}
			}
		,	value:'what a nice image'
		}
	}
});

If you want something to not be overwritten, have your key begin with '!':

{'!tag':'div'}

if you use extend a lot, you can register it once and for all:

Skin.register('titleBig',{
	children:{
		title:{
			style:{
				font-size:'250%''
			}
		}	
	}
});

after which you can do:

Skin.extend(lightbox,'titleBig')

Of course, you are free to use the jade-like syntax and parse it with Skin.parse():

Skin.register('titleBig',Skin.parse('.title(attr="250%")'))

Finally, render your skin:

Skin.render(lightbox);
Skin.render(lightbox,true); //remove styles

Or you can compile it into a function:

var lb = Skin(lightbox,'titleBig');
//render:
var output = lb({description:'just another description'});

When using the function, any object passed will map to the "value" field of object. the above basically the same as doing:

Skin.extend(lightbox,{
	children:{
		description:{
			value:'just another description'
		}
	}
});
Skin.render(lightbox);

With the notable difference that it doesn't overwrite the object itself

Finally, you can extract the css used in the object to write it to a css file

var styles = Skin.extractStyles(lightbox);
//or
styles = Skin.extractStyles(lightbox,true) //will present styles in a pre-processor fashion, with enclosed children
//or
var lb = Skin(lightbox);
styles = lb.styles();
//or
styles = lb.styles(true);

Once the styles have been extracted, the skin will render without them (it assumes you are re-injecting them somehow). If you want to keep them, use

lb.noStyles = false;

The object reader is quite permissive, so you can have "styles" on the root or in the "attributes" sub-object, "attributes" might be called "attr", "class" might be called "classes", and live in attributes or on the root, and so on