bad-templates

A not-very-good HTML templating system. Not versatile, probably has lots of bugs, critical features missing, pollutes the global namespace -- just terrible stuff. But it kind of works.

Installation

npm i bad-templates -S

Usage

<!-- ./templates/index.html -->
<h1>Hello, ${who}!</h1>
${date}
<p>some text here</p>

<!-- ./templates/who.html -->
World

<!-- ./templates/date.html -->
<h2>${new Date().toDateString()}</h2>

// index.js
const compile = require('bad-templates')
 
compile('./templates')
 
console.log(who)
// World
 
console.log(date)
// <h2>Sat Apr 08 2017</h2>
 
console.log(index)
// <h1>Hello, World!</h1>
// <h2>Sat Apr 08 2017</h2>
// <p>some text here</p>

Assumptions/Considerations

1. the provided function should be given a path to a directory containing .html files (any files not ending with .html are ignored)

2. each <file>.html will be compiled and the resulting output stored in a global named <file> (the name of the original .html file, minus the extension)

3. since the name of the .html file will ultimately also become the name of the global variable, your files should only be named something that could be used as a valid and unique JavaScript variable (ie, no - characters, no spaces, don't start with a number, etc.)

4. error and warning messages will probably be unhelpful

5. try not to declare a circular dependency, it probably won't end well

Why?

Why not? Also...

I like the idea of just using template literals as an HTML templating system, but I don't like having to write my HTML within strings. This was just an idea to let me write my HTML like normal, but where I could still utilize the features of template literals. Also as a way to provide easy access to other templates via just using their names.

I may or may not expand on this idea later on.