express-render-template

This package in no longer supported and has been replaced by node-iframe-replacement

Use the HTML source of an external URL as an express layout template, a clean alternative to an iframe.

Extends res.render allowing an external URL to be used as a layout & CSS selector as a placeholder location to inject view content.

Installation

$ npm install --save express-render-template

Usage

The example below will request the Mammoth Workwear home page and replace the contents of #promo-banner with the contents of the view

var renderTemplate = require('express-render-template');
 
// replace res.render with renderTemplate version
app.use(renderTemplate);
 
// create a regular express route
app.get('/', function(req, res){
    
    // call res.render as normal but pass template and selector rather than layout
    res.render('view-name',{
       template: 'http://mammothworkwear.com',  // external url to use as layout page
       templateSelector: '#promo-banner'        // element within the layout to inject view content
    });
});

View template

<h1>20% off <a href="https://northseaworkwear.com/brands-dickies-fr-workwear/">Dickies Workwear</a></h1>

Auto base tag injection

To ensure scripts, styles and images in the external template load on your site, the render method injects a HTML base tag <base href="http://mammothworkwear.com" />. Therefore you need to ensure any links within your view are absolute.