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Why CoffeeTemplates?

Inspired by coffeecup, and ck, and mini-handlebars libraries.

And now, a Haiku

5  template languages
7  are low-level logical
5  function recursions
7  the author dared not express
5  in the host language.

5  syntactic sugar
7  on low-level languages
5  ala coffeescript
7  brings template control to the
5  speed where it belongs.

Rendering Coffee to HTML

# this line is only required within node
CoffeeTemplates = require 'coffee-templates'

# initialize new engine
engine = new CoffeeTemplates format: true

# provide template expression
doctype 5
html ->
  head ->
    meta charset: 'utf-8'
    title "#{@title or 'Untitled'} | A completely plausible website"
    meta(name: 'description', content: @description) if @description?

    link rel: 'stylesheet', href: '/css/app.css'

    style '''
      body {font-family: sans-serif}
      header, nav, section, footer {display: block}
    '''

    comment 'Stylus is not supported but CoffeeStyleshets might be'

    script src: '/js/jquery.js'

    coffeescript ->
      $(document).ready ->
        alert 'Alerts suck!'
  body ->
    header ->
      h1 @title or 'Untitled'

      nav ->
        ul ->
          (li -> a href: '/', -> 'Home') unless @path is '/'
          li -> a href: '/chunky', -> 'Bacon!'
          switch @user.role
            when 'owner', 'admin'
              li -> a href: '/admin', -> 'Secret Stuff'
            when 'vip'
              li -> a href: '/vip', -> 'Exclusive Stuff'
            else
              li -> a href: '/commoners', -> 'Just Stuff'

    div '#myid.myclass.anotherclass', style: 'position: fixed', ->
      p 'Divitis kills! Inline styling too.'

    section ->
      # A helper function you built and included.
      breadcrumb separator: '>', clickable: yes

      h2 "Let's count to 10:"
      p i for i in [1..10]

      # Another hypothetical helper.
      form_to @post, ->
        textbox '#title', label: 'Title:'
        textbox '#author', label: 'Author:'
        submit 'Save'

    footer ->
      # CoffeeScript comments. Not visible in the output document.
      comment 'HTML comments.'
      p 'Bye!'


locals =
  title: 'Best website'

# render coffee template to html
console.log engine.render template, locals

Rendering Coffee to Handlebars

engine = new CoffeeTemplates format: true, handlebars: true

template = ->
  ul ->
    for company in @companies
      block "each #{company}", ->
        li '{{this}}'

console.log handlebars_template = engine.render template,
  companies: [ 'google', 'yahoo' ]

Outputs:

<ul>
  {{#each google}}
    <li>{{this}}</li>
  {{/each}}
  {{#each yahoo}}
    <li>{{this}}</li>
  {{/each}}
</ul>

Improving Handlebars/Mustache

Notice that while regular Mustache/Handlebars templates still compile, we took the liberty to engineer several improvements to the compiler:

engine = new CoffeeTemplates format: true

console.log mustache_template = engine.render ->
  block "each company, (name, data)", ->
    h2 '{{name}}'
    ul ->
      block "each data.people", ->
        li '{{this}}'

Outputs:

{{each company, (name, data)}}
  <h2>{{name}}</h2>
  <ul>
    {{each data.people}}
      <li>{{this}}</li>
    {{/each}}
  </ul>
{{/each}}

Rendering Coffee/Handlebars/Mustache to a NoEngine JS Function

mustache_template = '{{each company, (name, data)}}<h2>{{name}}</h2><ul>{{each data.people}}<li>{{this}}</li>{{/each}}</ul>{{/each}}'

console.log template_fn = CoffeeTemplates.compile mustache_template

Outputs:

function anonymous(i) {
var o='',w=function(f,a){o='';f.apply(i, a);return o};return w(each,[i.company,function(name,data){o+="<h2>"+name+"</h2><ul>"+w(each,[data.people,function(){o+="<li>"+this+"</li>"}])+"</ul>"}])
}

This single function is a completely stand-alone version of your template, and is all that is needed to render the HTML.

Of course, this could also be used to render XML or some other markup, as well.

Rendering a NoEngine JS Function to HTML

window.each = (o, cb) ->
  for k of o
    cb.apply o[k], [k, o[k]]
  return

console.log html = template_fn company:
  goog: people: ['Larry Page', 'Sergey Brin']
  msft: people: ['Bill Gates']

Outputs:

<h2>goog</h2><ul><li>Larry Page</li><li>Sergey Brin</li></ul><h2>msft</h2><ul><li>Bill Gates</li></ul>

Rendering multiple templates to function

console.log templates = ''+CoffeeTemplates.compileAll
  'views/users/index': mustache_template
  'views/users/index_by_company':mustache_template

Outputs:

function anonymous(n,i) {
var o='',w=function(f,a){o='';f.apply(i, a);return o},t={}
t["views/users/index"]=function(){return w(each,[this.company,function(name,data){o+="<h2>"+name+"</h2><ul>"+w(each,[data.people,function(){o+="<li>"+this+"</li>"}])+"</ul>"}])}
t["views/users/index_by_company"]=function(){return w(each,[this.company,function(name,data){o+="<h2>"+name+"</h2><ul>"+w(each,[data.people,function(){o+="<li>"+this+"</li>"}])+"</ul>"}])}
return t[n].call(i)
}

From here you would normally save the function in a file like static/public/assets/templates.js.

Further examples

As usual, for the latest examples, review the easy-to-follow ./test/test.coffee.

Or try it immediately in your browser with codepen.

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