nant lets you generate your html templates with plain javascript (browser and server).
###On the server
Install it
npm install nant
Then use it
var ht = require('nant').ht;
var html = ht.p('this is as easy as writing javascript code');
###On the Browser :
Just add nant.js to your includes.
<html>
<head>
<script src="nant.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<div id="placeholder">...</div>
<script>
var el = document.getElementById('placeholder');
var ht = nant.ht;
el.innerHTML = ht.p('this is as easy as writing javascript code');
</script>
</body>
</html>
Obviuosly, this is not a new templating language for javascript; javascript is the templating language.
Html tags are exposed as functions. you simply use the appropriate tag name to build your template.
Tag attributes are passed as arguments.
ht.input({ type: 'text', name: 'myinput', required: 'true'});
this will become
<input type="text" name="myinput" required>
Tag body is passed as an optional argument
ht.div({ id: 'myid', class: 'myclass' }, 'String body');
You can pass nested tags as body
ht.form({ id: 'myform', class: 'myclass' },
ht.input({ name: 'myinput' })
);
If you pass a function as body, it will be called upon rendering (with the tag as parameter)
function myBody(tag) {
return ht.p('Hello to ' + tag.name);
}
ht.form({ id: 'myform', class: 'myclass' },
myBody
);
if you need to embody multiples tags, simply list them in order
ht.form({ id: 'myform', class: 'myclass' },
ht.label({ for: 'myinput' }, 'My input'),
ht.input({ id:'myinput', name: 'myinput' }),
'Help text',
someFunction
);
You can also group body tags in arrays
ht.form({ id: 'myform', class: 'myclass' },
ht.h1('Form header'),
[
ht.label({ for: 'myinput' }, 'My input'),
ht.input({ id:'myinput', name: 'myinput' })
],
ht.button('Submit')
);
css class attribute can be defined as an array
ht.input({ class: ['class1', 'class2'] })
<input class="class1 class2">
class can also be a conditional object, only members with a truthy value will be picked
ht.input({ class: { class1: true, class2: 1 > 2 })
<input class="class1">
###Object attributes (aka angular/knockout/... users)
nant supports passing nested objects as attribute values, this is useful in some cases (if you're working with data-binding libs like angular or knockout)
ht.div({
objAttr: {
strAttr: 'strAttr',
numAttr: 1,
nested: {
nestedStr: 'nest\'edStr',
nestedNum: 1
}
}
})
<div obj-attr="{strAttr: 'strAttr', numAttr: 1, nested: {nestedStr: 'nest\'edStr', nestedNum: 1}}"></div>
Note also that camelCased tag attribute names are transformed to their dash-delimited countreparts (ie objAttr become obj-attr)
Sometimes, when working with data-binding libs, we have to pass expressions in the object attribute that will be evaluated later by the lib. observe this angular example
<p ng-class="{strike: !deleted, bold: some.isBold() }">...</p>
we can't write this object straight into our code because the expressions will be evaluateed directly
// Error, strike and bold members will get evaluated right now, probably raises an error if deleted or some aren't in the scope
ht.p({ ngClass: {strike: !deleted, bold: some.isBold() } })
instead use nant.uq(expr) to build an unquoted expression
// Correct , strike and bold members will get evaluated later
ht.p({ ngClass: {strike: nant.uq('!deleted'), bold: nant.uq('some.isBold()') } })
the following exemple builds a twitter bootstrap form
ht.form({ class: 'form-horizontal', role: 'form' },
ht.div({ class: 'form-group' },
ht.label({ for:'email', class: ['col-sm-2', 'control-label']}, 'Email'),
ht.div({ class: 'col-sm-10' },
ht.input({ type: 'email', class: 'form-control', id: 'email', placeholder: 'Email' })
)
),
ht.div({ class: 'form-group' },
ht.div({ class: 'col-sm-offset-2 col-sm-10' },
ht.button({ type: 'submit', class: 'btn btn-default'}, 'Sign in')
)
)
);
As we are simply using javascript, we are free to structure our templating the way we want. So we can also write
var bt = nant.bt = {};
bt.horzForm = function horzForm() {
var body = Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments);
return ht.form({ class: 'form-horizontal', role: 'form' }, body );
}
bt.formGroup = function formGroup(input, label) {
return ht.div({ class: 'form-group' },
label,
// css classes can also be passed as conditional object { class1: condition, class2: condition, ...}
ht.div({ class: { 'col-sm-10': true, 'col-sm-offset-2': !label }}, input )
)
}
var myHtml = bt.horzForm(
bt.formGroup(
ht.label({ for:'email', class: ['col-sm-2', 'control-label']}, 'Email'),
ht.input({ type: 'email', class: 'form-control', id: 'email', placeholder: 'Email' })
),
bt.formGroup(
ht.button({ type: 'submit', class: 'btn btn-default'}, 'Sign in')
)
)
Lets review the last example, w've reusable bootstrap tags to build form elements.
You may have noted that the grid's columns layout (all those col-sm-* classes) is hard coded inside the templates.
What if we want to move layout defintion (col-sm-* classes) outside ? we can make changes on form layout once and then apply it to all our form template.
Response is Mixins. a mixin allows us to apply transformations to a prebuilt Tag.
So we can rewrite the bootstrap form example as follow
// Form layout definition
var layout = {
label: { class: 'col-sm-2' },
input: { class: 'col-sm-10' },
offset: { class: 'col-sm-offset-2' }
}
// Form group apply layout def to its input and label
bt.formGroup = function formGroup(input, label) {
input = ht.div(input).mixin(layout.input);
if(label) {
label = label.mixin(layout.label);
} else {
input = input.mixin(layout.offset);
}
return ht.div({ class: 'form-group' },
label, input
)
}
var myHtml = bt.horzForm(
bt.formGroup(
ht.input({ type: 'email', class: 'form-control', id: 'email', placeholder: 'Email' }),
ht.label({ for:'email', class: 'control-label'}, 'Email')
),
bt.formGroup(
ht.button({ type: 'submit', class: 'btn btn-default'}, 'Sign in')
)
)
See how we've decoupled form layout and form field définition.
We can do better by abstracting away more bootstrap grid concepts
function BtFormLayout(cols, media) {
this.cols = cols;
this.media = media;
this.label = { class: 'col-'+ this.media + '-' + this.cols[0] };
this.input = { class: 'col-'+ this.media + '-' + this.cols[1] };
this.offset = { class: 'col-'+ this.media + '-offset-' + this.cols[0] };
}
var layout = new BtFormLayout([2,10], 'sm');
bt.formGroup = function formGroup(input, label, layout) {
input = ht.div(input).mixin(layout.input);
if(label) {
label = label.mixin(layout.label);
} else {
input = input.mixin(layout.offset);
}
return ht.div({ class: 'form-group' },
label, input
)
}
var myHtml = bt.horzForm(
bt.formGroup(
ht.input({ type: 'email', class: 'form-control', id: 'email', placeholder: 'Email' }),
ht.label({ for:'email', class: 'control-label'}, 'Email')
),
bt.formGroup(
ht.button({ type: 'submit', class: 'btn btn-default'}, 'Sign in')
)
)
You can go ever further to acheive better reusability; Because you're in the javascript land, you can apply your favourite desgin patterns.
Above w've seen attribute mixins. They are quite simple to use, you pass in an attribute definition; the mixin function extendsthe tag's attributes with the new ones.
Well there is also function mixins: you can provide the mixin method with your own function; it will be called then with tag object as parameter.
function myMixin(tag) {
// do something cool ...
// don't forget to return
return tag;
}
ht.div(/* ... */).mixin( myMixin );
so basically, the mixin function take a tag parameter, applies whatever transformations to it and then return :
input tag with a div)There is no limit of what you can do with function mixins just beware to always return a meaningful value (generally this will be a Tag object)
All exemples above simply define custom functions that return well known html tags; but you can also define your own custom tags that follows the html syntax rules. This maybe even necessary if you're working with some third party lib that requires custom tags (like angularjs).
Use nant.makeTag to make a tag builder function
// define your namespace
var ns = nant.ns = {};
// define your custom element inside the namespace
ns.myElement = nant.makeTag('MyElement', isVoid)
//Later you can use your tag function
var myHtml = ht.div(
ns.myElement({ ...}, body )
)
If isVoid parameter is true, then any body provided to the tag function will be ignored and closing tag (</myelement>) will not be generated upon tag stringification
FAQs
A 'not-another-templating-language' for javascripters
The npm package nant receives a total of 0 weekly downloads. As such, nant popularity was classified as not popular.
We found that nant demonstrated a not healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released a year ago. It has 1 open source maintainer collaborating on the project.
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