express-blocks

express-blocks

Middleware for Express that adds basic block support to views.

This was initially prototyped by Laurie Harper. Thanks Laurie!

Installation

Easy peasy:

npm install express-blocks

Please note the version you install and only specify that exact version as your dependency while this is in development. Breaking changes are likely!

Usage

In your app.js, register this middleware:

app.use(require('express-blocks'));

Then in your (top-level) layout, name and add placeholders for your desired blocks (e.g. in EJS syntax):

<%- blocks.foo %>
...
<%- blocks.bar %>

And from your views (or intermediate layouts), add arbitrary HTML to those blocks via the block() function:

<%- block('foo', '<p>Hello world!</p>') %>

You can use the helper script() and stylesheet() functions to generate generate staple <script> and <link rel="stylesheet"> references for you:

<%- script('/path/to/script.js') %>
<%- stylesheet('/path/to/stylesheet.js') %>

Which are exposed to (top-level) layouts as blocks named scripts and stylesheets, also aliased globally just like body:

<%- scripts %>
<%- stylesheets %>

As Borat would say, niiice!

Example

Run the included Express example:

node example/app.js

Then open your browser to http://localhost:8080/ to see it in action.

Testing

You can verify that everything works as expected via:

npm test

If you want to submit a pull request, be sure to add a test case, too!

License

MIT License. Copyright © 2011 Aseem Kishore and Laurie Harper.