htemplate

Creates a tagged template string function that is aware of HTML in the generated strings.

Its primary purpose is generating the interior contents of a DOM-related component model. That component model could be custom elements, or your own type of component model that uses DOM nodes with special classes or attributes to indicate the component type.

Prerequisites

Assumes a browser that supports:

• ES2015 Tagged template strings

Editor syntax highlighting

Editor support for syntax highlighting HTML inside the tagged template strings helps with the string legibility. This section tracks open issues related to getting wider support for this feature in more editors. If you can help with these issues, it would be appreciated.

• Atom editor
• Sublime Text, JavaScriptNext.tmLanguage package

Install

Grab the htemplate.js in this repo and place it in your project. You can get the latest release via the latest tag.

The module does not have any dependencies.

If using a package manager:

npm install htemplate

# or

[npm | bower | volo] install jrburke/htemplate

Introduction

It is implemented as a UMD module that can be used as an AMD or Node-style CommonJS module, or in a non-module, browser globals setup via the htemplate global.

The main entry point is the htemplate() function returned as the module export. htemplate() returns a function that when called later will do the following:

• Runs the renderFn function that uses the html() tagged template.
• Sets an element's innerHTML with the text result.
• Calls/sets properties on sub-elements in that innerHTML that should receive non-string objects (property setting).

Here is an example that defines a custom element that does not use Shadow DOM or any model binding, just sets the innerHTML when the createdCallback, a custom element lifecycle method, is called by the browser.

var htemplate = require('htemplate');
 
// Example of data that can be used in the template.
var accounts = [
  {
    id: 1,
    name: 'Alice'
  },
  {
    id: 2,
    name: 'Bob'
  }
];
 
var proto = Object.create(HTMLElement.prototype);
proto.createdCallback = require('htemplate')(function(html) {
  // Use the html() function created by htemplate to build up the HTML. No need
  // to assign the result of html() to a variable, htemplate will collect the
  // calls to html() and combine them all after this function finishes.
  html`
  <h1>Accounts</h1>
  <ul>
  `
 
  accounts.forEach(function(account) {
    html`<li><a href="accounts/${account.id}">${account.name}</a></li>`;
  });
 
  html`
  </ul>
  `
});
 
// Register the custom element.
document.registerElement('my-element', {
  prototype: proto
});
 
// To use this component:
var element = document.createElement('my-element');

Since this is used inside the function returned by htemplate(), it is tailored to be used in custom elements, where this.innerHTML maps to the interior HTML contents of the custom element.

For component system where that does not work: maybe the DOM for the element lives on a property called this.dom. In that case, use the element option to return this.dom. The element option can be a DOM element or a function that is called with the this set to the this when the renderFn is called:

this.render = require('htemplate')(function(html) {
  html``;
}, {
  element: function() { return this.dom; }
});

If you want to use the Shadow DOM instead of setting the public innerHTML for a custom element:

this.render = require('htemplate')(function(html) {
  html``;
}, {
  element: function() { return  this.shadowRoot || this.createShadowRoot(); }
});

If you just wanted to create a function that is not part of a custom component, but renders the innerHTML of the document body:

var render = require('htemplate')(function(html) {
  html``;
}, {
  element: document.body
});
 
// Call render() any time you want the document.body to be generated.
render();

htemplate does not do any virtual DOM diffing, it will just set the innerHTML. Create small components that use fine grained model listening to minimize the parts of the UI that change.

API

this.render = htemplate(renderFn, options);

renderFn

renderFn is the function that will be called with the html() tagged template function. renderFn will use it to build up a string of HTML to insert as the innerHTML for an element. In its default configuration it assumes the element is a custom element. The html() function will properly HTML escape strings for expression interpolations.

For example:

// When this.render() is called, the innerHTML generated would be:
// <p>Go this way: &lt;north&gt;</p>
 
this.render = htemplate(function(html) {
  var direction = '<north>';
  html`<p>Go this way: ${direction}</p>`;
});

options

element

Function or DOM element. Optional. This controls what element is used for the element.innerHTML call done internally. By default, the element is the same this used for the renderFn, but see the Introduction section for ways to target using a Shadow DOM, some other component property, or just a plain element already in the DOM.

The value can be a function, or a DOM element. The function is called with this as the same as the this used for the renderFn.

verifyFn

Function. Optional. Once the HTML string has been constructed from the renderFn but before it is used for the innerHTML call, the verifyFn can verify or change the text result.

This is useful for tasks like confirming all the custom elements used in the HTML string have already been loaded. This logic could be unique the loading situation of the app.

The function is called with the this value the same as the this used for renderFn, and one parameter is passed to the function, tagResult, which has the following properties:

• text: the HTML string generated from renderFn.
• propId: A unique ID used to bind the props property sets later, if property sets were used in the template. Only useful if manually calling htemplate.applyProps(). Part of the property setting functionality, can be ignored for the usual htemplate() usage.
• props: An object that holds the property sets to do. Only useful if manually calling htemplate.applyProps(). Part of the property setting functionality, can be ignored for the usual htemplate() usage.

toStringAll

Boolean. Optional. If set to true, this will force all non-string values that are a result of expression interpolation to just be toString()'d into the resulting HTML string, instead of treating them as property sets on elements in the HTML.

In summary, it turns off the property setting capability.

Property setting

Any non-string value from an expression interpolation (the ${thing} usage in a tagged template string), will result on a property set on the DOM element if the expression interpolation is the value for an attribute in the HTML. Example:

this.render = htemplate(function(html) {
  html`<account-listing model="${this.model}"></account-listing>`;
});

If this.model is not typeof 'string', then once the above HTML is set as the innerHTML, htemplate will then do the equivalent of element.querySelector('account-listing').model = this.model.

If the property on the element is a function (typeof 'function'), htemplate will call the function with expression interpolation value as the single argument.

For property names that are mixed case, you can either just used the mixed case name, or if you want to keep the name all lower case, htemplate will convert a-prop-name to aPropName before doing the property set:

// These are equivalent, both result in some-thing.aPropName = nonStringValue.
html`<some-thing aPropName="${nonStringValue}"></some-thing>`;
html`<some-thing a-prop-name="${nonStringValue}"></some-thing>`;

Notes:

• Property setting is only done for expression interpolation values that are attribute values, and those attributes must use double quotes around them to work.
• If the attribute name starts with data-, property setting is not done, and instead the expression interpolation value is toString()'d. This is to maintain compatibility with HTML data attributes.
• Expression interpolation values that are strings are not property sets, they end up just being DOM attributes on the element. Get them via element.getAttribute().
• This property set behavior can be skipped, forcing all expression interpolation values to be toString()'d into the HTML, with the toStringAll htemplate option.

Tests

Run npm install first to install mocha for the tests.

To run the tests, open test/all.html in a browser and press the "Go" button. Each test is also individually loadable in a browser for easy per-test debugging.

Browser prerequisites for tests:

• Tagged template strings.
• Custom elements. document.registerElement and createShadowRoot are needed for the tests, but not to use htemplate on its own.

Firefox with the dom.webcomponents.enabled pref set to true (via about:config) or Chrome should work.

License

Apache License 2.0

History

Extracted from a mozilla-b2g/gaia email app branch that started in 2015.