awesomebox

0.5.3 • Public • Published

Status: Deprecated

Instead of requiring you to install this NPM module, Awesomebox now integrates directly with Github.

In order to focus on making the integration with your source control amazing, we're no longer providing support for this module.

awesomebox

Effortless HTML, CSS, JS development in the flavor of your choice

Installation

You'll have to have node.js installed first. The easiest way to do this is going to nodejs.org and clicking the big INSTALL button. Once node.js is installed, open up a terminal and and run the following.

$ npm install -g awesomebox

You may need to sudo in order to install awesomebox. Alternatively you can grant yourself permissions to /usr/local running sudo chown $USER -R /usr/local first.

Usage

Then to run awesomebox, just change directory into your project's directory and run awesomebox from there. That's it!

cd /path/to/my/project
$ awesomebox

Videos

Quick Intro: http://screencast.com/t/xCpB1i66

Features

  • Automatic Transpilation of HTML, CSS, and Javascript dialects
  • Automatic Transpilation of <script> and <style> tags
  • Layouts
  • Partials
  • Data Files (JSON and YAML)

Currently Supported Dialects

HTML

atpl

filename.html.atpl

dust

filename.html.dust

eco

filename.html.eco

ect

filename.html.ect

ejs

filename.html.ejs

haml

filename.html.haml

haml-coffee

filename.html.haml-coffee

handlebars

filename.html.handlebars

hogan

filename.html.hogan

jade

filename.html.jade

jazz

filename.html.jazz

jqtpl

filename.html.jqtpl

JUST

filename.html.just

liquor

filename.html.liquor

markdown using pygmentize

filename.html.md or filename.html.markdown

mustache

filename.html.mustache

QEJS

filename.html.qejs

swig

filename.html.swig

templayed

filename.html.templayed

toffee

filename.html.toffee

underscore

filename.html.underscore

walrus

filename.html.walrus

whiskers

filename.html.whiskers

CSS

less

filename.css.less or <style type="text/less"></style>

sass/scss

filename.css.sass or <style type="text/sass"></style>

stylus

filename.css.styl or <style type="text/stylus"></style>

Javascript

coffee-script

filename.js.coffee or <script type="text/coffeescript"></script>

React.js

filename.js.jsx or <script type="text/jsx"></script>

Directory Structure

To use awesomebox, you never need to change the directory structure that you're currently using. Just run awesomebox in your project's directory and it'll work!

- index.html                      # Will be rendered for / or /index or /index.html
- posts
  |- index.html.ejs               # Will be rendered for /posts or /posts/index or /posts/index.html
  |- post-1.html
  |- post-2.html
- css
  |- style.css.less
- js
  |- app.js.coffee

If you'd like to take advantage of some of the features that awesomebox provides, all you need to do is create a content directory and it'll get picked up automatically. Now you'll have access to layouts and data file access.

- content
  |- index.html                   # Will be rendered for / or /index or /index.html
  |- posts
    |- index.html.ejs             # Will be rendered for /posts or /posts/index or /posts/index.html
    |- post-1.html
    |- post-2.html
  |- css
    |- style.css.less
  |- js
    |- app.js.coffee
- layouts
  |- default.html.ejs             # Default layout
  |- posts.html.ejs               # Layout for posts directory
- data
  |- identity.yml
  |- blog_posts.json

The box Object

The box object is always available from your templates and contains special methods that link you into the awesomebox system. The most notable of these is the box.content method. This can be used by layouts to render the main template for the current route or to render partials. There are also other properties available on the box object, such as the current view and current route.

Content

Content can be straight HTML or can use a view rendering engine.

Since awesomebox makes use of consolidate, it supports all rendering engines listed in the consolidate documentation. The rendering engines and order is determined by the extensions on the page filename. For instance, if you have a file named index.html.ejs.hogan, the file will first be run through the hogan rendering engine and then then ejs rendering engine. The resulting data will be returned to the browser as HTML.

Partials

Partials are rendered using the box.content method from within templates. Partial filenames MUST start with the _ character. Partial resolution is the same as page resolution, except that partials are resolved either relative to the template it is being called from or absolutely from the html directory.

For instance, if the layout at /layouts/index.html.ejs wants to include a footer partial, it can reference a partial at /layouts/partials/_footer.html.ejs by including this:

<%- box.content('partials/footer') %>

However, if the partial was located at /html/_footer.html.ejs, then the layout should include this:

<%- box.content('/footer') %>

Passing data into partials is very easy. You can either pass in an object, like this:

<%- box.content('print_my_name', {name: 'Matt'}) %>

Or you could provide the path to a data file, like this:

<%- box.content('print_my_name', 'name_data') %>

The above example will find the data file named name_data.{extension}, parse it, and pass it into the print_my_name partial.

Layouts

Layouts are used to abstract away all the headers and footers and general page structure that all pages tend to share. They are not necessary whatsoever but definitely make life much easier. It is important to note that layouts are only available for html pages.

Layouts are resolved in a very specific way. For any page, the applicable layout will be the directory name for that page. For instance, for a page at /foo/bar/baz.html{.engine?}, the resolution order would be

  • /layouts/foo/bar.html{.engine?}
  • /layouts/foo.html{.engine?}
  • /layouts/index.html{.engine?}
  • No Layout

Layouts can use the box.content() method to place the content of the rendered page.

For example, you could create a simple layout that uses partials for the header and footer, and inserts the page content between them.

/layouts/index.html.ejs
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
  <title>My Amazing Project<%- typeof(title) !== 'undefined' ? ' | ' + title : '' %></title>
</head>
<body>
  <%- box.content('/partials/header') %>
  <%- box.content() %>
  <%- box.content('/partials/footer') %>
</body>
</html>

This example also shows how you can share variables between the rendered content and the layout since the content is rendered first, then the layout is rendered.

/content/index.html.ejs
<% title = 'Welcome!' %>
 
<h1>Welcome to my awesome project!</h1>
 
<p>
  I hope you have a nice stay. Look around for a bit.
</p>

Data

Data files can be used for a lot of different things, like configuration, example data, lists of information, etc. These files can either be read in as raw files or parsed for you to use in your templates. Currently recognized formats are JSON and YAML files with extensions .json, .yaml, .yml. All data files should reside in the data directory and will be resolved within that directory.

For example, let's say that you want to display a list of names and pictures on your team page. You could maintain that list in a data file and reference it from your template with box.data(...).

/data/team.json
[{
  "name": "Matt Insler",
  "email": "matt.insler@gmail.com",
  "website": "http://www.mattinsler.com",
  "picture": "http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/45d9a0f5a6e7dae520a768d615e54a74.png"
}, {
  "name": "Boo Boo Insler",
  "email": "i.am.a.cute.dog@gmail.com",
  "website": "http://www.dailypuppy.com/",
  "picture": "http://cdn-www.dailypuppy.com/dog-images/oliver-the-dalmatian_71956_2013-07-29_w450.jpg"
}]
/content/team.html.ejs
<h1>Our Awesome Team</h1>
 
<ul class="unstyled">
<% box.data('/team').forEach(function(person) { %>
  <li>
    <h3><%= person.name %> <small><a href="mailto:<%- person.email %>"><%= person.email %></a></small></h3>
    <img src="<%- person.picture %>">
    <p>Check out my work at <a href="<%- person.website %>" target="_blank"><%= person.website %></a></p>
  </li>
<% }) %>
</ul>

You can also read the data raw with box.data.raw(...). This is great for debugging data files too.

Check out my data.
<pre><%- box.data.raw('/team') %></pre>

Deploying

If you'd like to run awesomebox on your own server, you're more than welcome to!

However, if you want something a little easier, you can deploy your project to Heroku with almost no work at all. Just use the Awesomebox Heroku Buildpack (follow the link for instructions).

License

Copyright (c) 2013 Matt Insler
Licensed under the MIT license.

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