Modern Template Consolidation Engine for EJS, Markdown, Pug, Nunjucks, Mustache, and Handlebars

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Features

• Zero Config by default but all properties exposed for flexibility. Check out our easy API
• Async render and renderFromFile functions for ES6 and Typescript.
• Render via Template File with Automatic Engine Selection. No more selecting which engine to use as it does it for you based on file extension.
• Only the Top Template Engines: EJS, Markdown, Pug, Nunjucks, Mustache, Liquid, and Handlebars
• Maintained with Monthly Updates!

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Getting Started

Step 1: Add Ecto to your Project

yarn add ecto

Step 2: Declate and Initialize

const Ecto = require("ecto");
let ecto = new Ecto();

Step 3: Render via String for EJS (Default Engine)

let source = "<h1>Hello <%= firstName%> <%= lastName %>!</h1>";
let data = {firstName: "John", lastName: "Doe"}
//async render(source:string, data?:object, engineName?:string, rootTemplatePath?:string, filePathOutput?:string): Promise<string>
let output = await ecto.render(source, data);

Here is how it looks all together after you have added it as a package via yarn add ecto! Here we also set a different defaultEngine.

const Ecto = require("ecto");
let ecto = new Ecto({defaultEngine: "handlebars"});

let source = "<h1>Hello {{ firstName }} {{ lastName }}!</h1>";
let data = {firstName: "John", lastName: "Doe"};
let output = await ecto.render(source, data);

console.log(output);

To render from a template file it just use the renderFromFile function. This does automatic selection of the engine based on file extension.

let ecto = new Ecto();
let data = { firstName: "John", lastName: "Doe"};
//async renderFromFile(filePath:string, data?:object, rootTemplatePath?:string, filePathOutput?:string, engineName?:string): Promise<string>
let output = await ecto.renderFromFile("./path/to/template.ejs", data);

Next Steps:

• More examples on Render from String
• More examples on Render from File
• Examples on setting the Default Engine
• Examples by Specific Engines
• Check out the entire API / Functions
• Learn more about Markdown
• Learn more about Handlebars and Helpers that we added

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Only the Top Template Engines and Their Extensions

While doing research for enabling other projects to handle multiple template engines we decided to not use other consolidation engines as they were all over the place. Some of the packages were unsupported and most likely hard to validate as working. Some had had limited types and ease of use.

Our goal is to support the top engines which most likely handle the vast majority of use cases and just make it easy. Here are the top engines that we support and make easy:

Engine	Monthly Downloads	Extensions
EJS		.ejs
Markdown		.markdown, .md
Pug		.pug, .jade
Nunjucks		.njk
Mustache		.mustache
Handlebars		.handlebars, .hbs, .hjs
Liquid		.liquid

The Extensions are listed above for when we Render from File.

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Render From String

As we have shown in Getting Started -- It's that Easy! you can do a render in only a couple lines of code:

let ecto = new Ecto();

let source = "<h1>Hello <%= firstName%> <%= lastName %>!</h1>";
let data = {firstName: "John", lastName: "Doe"};
let output = await ecto.render(source, data);

console.log(output);

Now lets say your engine is not EJS so you want to specify it. You can either set the defaultEngine parameter or simply pass it in the render function. Here we are doing Handlebars:

let ecto = new Ecto();

let source = "<h1>Hello {{firstName}} {{lastName}}!</h1>";
let data = {firstName: "John", lastName: "Doe"};
let output = await ecto.render(source, data, "handlebars");

console.log(output);

render also can handle partial files for you standard engines (markdown excluded) by just adding the rootTemplatePath:

let ecto = new Ecto();

let source = "<h1>Hello <%= firstName%> <%= lastName %>!</h1><%- include('/relative/path/to/partial'); %>";
let data = {firstName: "John", lastName: "Doe"};
let output = await ecto.render(source, data, undefined, "./path/to/templates");

console.log(output);

render also can write out the file for you by specifying the filePathOutput parameter like below. It will still return the output via string:

let ecto = new Ecto();

let source = "<h1>Hello <%= firstName%> <%= lastName %>!</h1>";
let data = {firstName: "John", lastName: "Doe"};
let output = await ecto.render(source, data, undefined, undefined, "./path/to/output/file.html");

console.log(output);

Notice the undefined passed into the engineName parameter. This is done because we already have the defaultEngine set to EJS. If you want you can easily add it in by specifying it.

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Render From File

To render via a template file it is as simple as calling the renderFromFile function with a couple simple parameters to be passed in. In this example we are simply passing in the template and it will return a string.

One of the biggest benefits is that based on the file extension it will automatically select the correct engine.

let ecto = new Ecto();
let data = { firstName: "John", lastName: "Doe"};

let output = await ecto.renderFromFile("./path/to/template.ejs", data);

In this example we are now asking it to write the output file for us and it will return the output still as a string:

let ecto = new Ecto();
let data = { firstName: "John", lastName: "Doe"};

let output = await ecto.renderFromFile("./path/to/template.ejs", data, undefined,"./path/to/output/yourname.html");

Notice that in these examples it is using the ./path/to/template.ejs to use the engine EJS for the rendering.

You can override the auto selected engine by adding it on the function as a parameter by passing in pug in this example:

let ecto = new Ecto();
let data = { firstName: "John", lastName: "Doe"};

let output = await ecto.renderFromFile("./path/to/template.ejs", data, undefined, "./path/to/output/yourname.html", "pug");

This will override the auto selection process and render the template using the Pug engine.

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Default Engine

There are a couple of ways to set the default engine to make it flexible. The first is that the Ecto.defaultEngine is set by default to ejs. So if you are using ejs no need to change anything.

Here is how you set it on initializing your class with liquid as the default engine:

let ecto = new Ecto({defaultEngine: "liquid"});

Here is how you set it as a parameter:

let ecto = new Ecto();
ecto.defaultEngine = "mustache";

You can also do it on the render which will override the Ecto.defaultEngine parameter:

let ecto = new Ecto();

let source = "<h1>Hello {{firstName}} {{lastName}}!</h1>";
let data = {firstName: "John", lastName: "Doe"};
let output = await ecto.render(source, data, "handlebars");

You can also override the auto selection on renderFromFile like so:

let ecto = new Ecto();
let data = { firstName: "John", lastName: "Doe"};

let output = await ecto.renderFromFile("./path/to/template.html", data, undefined, "./path/to/output/yourname.html", "pug");

Examples By Specific Engines

Markdown

Markdown is a bit different as it will not have some of the complexities such as data objects or partials and layouts. To render markdown it is this easy:

let ecto = Ecto();
let source = "# markdown rulezz!";
let output = await ecto.render(source, undefined, "markdown");

console.log(output); //should be <h1 id="markdown-rulezz">markdown rulezz!</h1>

Render by File

let ecto = Ecto();
let output = await ecto.renderByFile("/path/to/file.md");

console.log(output);

With Markdown we have added the following options as they are the most common:

{
    pedantic: false,
    gfm: true,
    breaks: false,
    sanitize: false,
    smartLists: true,
    smartypants: false,
    xhtml: false
}

You can read more about them by going here.

Handlebars

Handlebars is a favorite of ours but it needs a bit more help to really get the bang for the buck. To do that we added in handlebars-helpers to do the trick so you can format dates and more. Here is an example using Handlebars Helpers in your template:

let ecto = Ecto();
let source = "{{year}}";
let output = await ecto.render(source, undefined, "handlebars");

console.log(output); //should be current year such as 2021

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API

The API is focused on using the main Ecto class:

const Ecto = require("Ecto");

let ecto = new Ecto();

//ecto.<API> -- functions and parameters

Functions:

• render (async) - Render from a string.
  • source:string - the markup/template source that you would like to render
  • data?:object - data to be rendered by the file
  • engineName?:string - to override the Ecto.defaultEngine parameter
  • rootTemplatePath?:string - root template path that is used for patials and layouts
  • filePathOutput?:string - specify the file path if you would like to write out the rendered output.
• renderFromFile (async) - Render from a file path and will auto select what engine to use based off of extension. It will return a Promise<string> of the rendered output.
  • filePath?:string - the file that you would like to render
  • data?:object - data to be rendered by the file
  • rootTemplatePath?:string - root template path that is used for patials and layouts
  • filePathOutput?:string - specify the file path if you would like to write out the rendered output.
  • engineName?:string - to override the auto selection of the engineName

Parameters:

• defaultEngine:string = the default engine to use and set by default to ejs
• mappings:EngineMap - Mapping class of all the engines registered in the system.

Engines

To make it easier to access certain engines and change them all engines supported are provided as parameters directly on the Ecto class as Ecto.<EngineFullName> such as:

let ecto = Ecto();
console.log(ecto.Handlebars.name); // will return "handlebars"
console.log(ecto.Handlebars.opts); // will return "handlebars" options object

To access the specific engine you can do so by going to ecto.<engine_name>.engine such as setting the SafeString:

let ecto = Ecto();
ecto.Handlebars.engine.SafeString("<div>HTML Content!</div>");