hbs

What is hbs?

The hbs package is a Handlebars view engine for Express. It allows you to use Handlebars templates to render HTML pages in your Express applications.

What are hbs's main functionalities?

Registering Partials

This feature allows you to register partials, which are reusable components that can be included in other templates. The code sample demonstrates how to register partials located in the 'views/partials' directory.

const hbs = require('hbs');
hbs.registerPartials(__dirname + '/views/partials');

Using Helpers

Helpers are functions that can be used within your templates to perform specific tasks. The code sample shows how to register a helper named 'scream' that converts text to uppercase.

const hbs = require('hbs');
hbs.registerHelper('scream', function(text) {
  return text.toUpperCase();
});

Rendering Views

This feature allows you to render views using Handlebars templates. The code sample demonstrates setting up an Express application to use hbs as the view engine and rendering an 'index' view with a title.

const express = require('express');
const hbs = require('hbs');
const app = express();
app.set('view engine', 'hbs');
app.get('/', (req, res) => {
  res.render('index', { title: 'Home Page' });
});
app.listen(3000);

Other packages similar to hbs

express-handlebars

express-handlebars is another Handlebars view engine for Express. It offers more features and flexibility compared to hbs, such as layout support and advanced configuration options.

pug

Pug is a high-performance template engine heavily influenced by Haml and implemented with JavaScript for Node.js and browsers. Unlike hbs, which uses Handlebars syntax, Pug uses its own unique syntax that is more concise.

ejs

EJS (Embedded JavaScript) is a simple templating language that lets you generate HTML markup with plain JavaScript. It is similar to hbs in that it integrates well with Express, but it uses a different syntax and offers different features.

README

hbs

Express.js view engine wrapper for handlebars.js, an extension of Mustache template language.

Why

While Handlbars.js is already a Node.js module, it cannot be used directly as an Express.js view engine. This module will fill that role until Handlebars.js adds Express.js view engine support directly.

Installation

npm install hbs

Usage

To set hbs as default view engine:

app.set("view engine", "hbs");

Examples

See test/2.x/app.js or test/3.x/app.js depending on your version of express.

Issues

__get__ function is not supported within block helper functions.

Migrating to 1.0.0

• Version number bumped to 1.0.0 to match Handlebars version.
• Handlebars is now loaded using require and is longer embedded.
• hbs.handlebarsPath was removed
• registerHelper and registerPartial methods are exported.

Migrating from 0.0.3 from 0.0.2

Handlebars' block-helpers now needs to be in blockHelpers (see example above) instead of locals.