litejs

@version    18.0.0-rc.5
@date       2017-10-24

LiteJS

The best way to build fast and powerful web interfaces.

Weighing in at just 28KB (12KB gzipped), it includes everything you need to build a modern web application:

• routed views with browser history management
• reusable templates by custom element tags
• asynchronous and dynamic code loading
• translations with instant language switching - no page reload required

.. and more with no dependencies

• date parsing and formating
• string formating
• keyboard shortcuts

See a working example with a source code in 80 lines.

It also supports SVG elements, so it is possible to build full SVG single-page applications.
See a example with a source code in 60 lines.

Get Started

Build your first LiteJS app with in 5 minute Quick Start Guide

npm install -g litejs
litejs init demo-project
cd demo-project
npm start

Overview

In short - an application consists of a presentation layer (UI) and a data layer (Model).

Presentation layer

Most template engines translates its own custom syntax to HTML string and then let browsers to parse HTML into a DOM.

HTML is a markup language for building DOM tree from a string.

LiteJS have a DOM-aware template engine, that bypasses HTML string part and turns templates directly to DOM nodes.

Declare elements and attributes with clear, well-indented CSS selectors.

a#123.link.bold[href="#A"] My link
ul
	li Item A
	li Item B
.footer>button:disabled[title=go] Click

becomes

<a id="123" class="link bold" href="#A">My link</a>
<ul>
	<li>Item A</li>
	<li>Item B</li>
</ul>
<div class="footer">
	<button disabled="disabled" title="go">Click</button>
</div>

• Type selector, attribute selectors, ID selectors, and pseudo-classes are supported. Child combinators can be used and you can leave off the tag to get a div.

Built-in plugins

Plugins starts with @ in template files.

• @child - Content will be put there.
• @def [route,...] [route|file,...] - Define routes and required files for them.
• @el [name] - Create a new custom element.
• @view [route] [parent] - Organize views into a hierarchy with built-in router.
  • Accepts Level 1 URI Templates RFC 6570.
  • Views starting with # are hidden without a route.

@el menu
	ul
		@el row
			li.my-row
				i.icon
				b
					@child
		row.first
			a[href="#home"] Home
		row.last
			a[href="#page/about"] About
	hr

@el footer
	.footer
		hr
		i Bye

@view home #body
	menu
	h1 Home
	footer

@view page/{pageName} #body
	menu
	h1 Welcome to {route.pageName} page!
	section Hello World!
	footer

See it in action

Built-in bindings

Bindings starts with & in template files after declaring selector. Bindings are piece of JavaScript that will be run on rendering. Bindings ties together UI and Model.

• &class: [name], [force] - Add a class to element.
• &txt: [content] - Add plain text to element.

a[href="#x"]
    &class: "is-selected", Math.random() > .5
    // :: is for one-time binding
    &txt:: this.href

Data layer

To detect and respond to changes LiteJS uses observables.

Item is a observable Object, List is a observable Array of Items.

Api

Defined global variables

• El
• View
• Fn

// Optional path for views, default = ""
View.base = "/js/views/"

// Define starting point in DOM
View("body", document.body)

// Default view
View.main = "home"

// El.data is a root scope for elements, make View visible for templates
El.data.View = View

External links

• GitHub repo
• npm package
• URI Template RFC 6570

Licence

Copyright (c) 2013-2017 Lauri Rooden <[e-mail]>
The MIT License