Hogan-express NPM

HOGAN-EXPRESS

Mustache template engine for the express 3.x web framework.

Uses twitter's hogan.js engine.

Supports

Partials (Allows you to modularize, to move pieces of templates to their own file - think of these as "included" templates)
Layouts (Allows you to consolidate common elements of your templates - think of these as "parent" templates)
Caching (Makes your app more efficient by reducing unnecessary rendering)
Lambdas (Allows you to create custom filters/lambdas)

Install

Install hogan-express using npm:

npm install hogan-express

Usage

Setup

To use hogan-express, map the file extension of your choice to the hogan-express engine in your app setup. For example:

app.set 'view engine', 'html'    # use .html extension for templates
app.set 'layout', 'layout'       # use layout.html as the default layout
app.set 'partials', foo: 'foo'   # define partials available to all pages
app.enable 'view cache'
app.engine 'html', require('hogan-express')

Rendering a template

Within your app route callback, define res.locals and call res.render, passing any partials required by your template. For example:

app.get '/', (req,res)->
  res.locals = name: 'Andrew'
  res.render 'template', partials: {message: 'message'}

This would render the layout (layout.html, defined in setup) using the template (template.html) and the specified partials (message.html).

If layout.html contained:

<p>
  <strong>Message Layout</strong>
  {{{ yield }}}
</p>

and template.html contained:

<em>{{ name }} says {{> message }}</em>

and message.html contained:

Hello World.

the callback would produce:

<p>
  <strong>Message Layout</strong>
  <em>Andrew says Hello World.</em>
</p>

The special {{{ yield }}} variable in layout.html indicates the location in your layout file where your template is rendered. You can define your layout using app.set 'layout', ... or specify it when calling res.render. If a layout is not provided, the template is rendered directly.

Custom yield tags

You can define more extension points in layout.html using custom tags {{yield-<name>}}. For example:

layout:

<head>
  ...
  {{{yield-styles}}}
  {{{yield-scripts}}}
  ...
</head>

index:

{{#yield-styles}}
  <style>
    ...
  </style>
{{/yield-styles}}

{{#yield-scripts}}
  <script>
    ...
  </script>
{{/yield-scripts}}

The page index.html will be rendered into {{yield}} without the content in {{#yield-styles}}...{{/yield-styles} and {{#yield-scripts}}...{{/yield-scripts}}. That content goes into accordingly named tags in layout.html. If {{{yield-styles}}} is missing, the styles tag content will not be rendered.

Custom layouts

To render a page with custom layout, just specify it in the options: res.render "admin.html", layout: "admin-layout"

Custom Lambdas / Filters

To create custom filters (or lambdas) you can just specify your filter functions in the options:

app.get '/', (req,res)->

  res.locals = myDefaultLabel: "oops" # here to show a little of how scoping works

  res.render 'template',
    message: 'This is a message. HERE.'
    mylist: [{label: "one", num: 1},{label: "two", num: 2},{num: 3}]

    lambdas:
     lowercase: (text) ->
       return text.toLowerCase()
     reverseString: (text) ->
       return text.split("").reverse().join("")

template:

<p>Lowercase <strong>{{message}}</strong>: {{#lambdas.lowercase}}{{message}}{{/lambdas.lowercase}}</p>
<ul>
  {{#mylist}}
  <li>{{num}}: {{label}} is {{#reverseString}}{{label}}{{#reverseString}} in reverse.</li>
  {{/mylist}}
</ul>

rendered html:

<p>Lowercase <strong>This is a message. HERE.</strong>: this is a message. here.</p>
<ul>
  <li>1: one is eno in reverse.</li>
  <li>2: two is owt in reverse.</li>
  <li>3: oops is spoo in reverse.</li>
</ul>