stater-swig

1.4.2 • Public • Published

Stater - Smart HTML Blueprint

Stater

Stater is a HTML Template Blueprint including static web server based on node js. Stater help front-end developer to develop their template without headache.

Why we (Front-End Developer) need it?

Let's say I have tired with changing all HTML files when changing small things on header or other shared blocks. or I have tired to pres CMD+R everytimes I change css or another files or I hate to wait grunt or gulp finished running the tasks for small things I made or any headache that comes because our job is working with static web template.

Yes, I made Stater template to support my job, and then I share it to help another me who tired with static things.

Example

views/parts/main.html

Main html is the main layout, holding head and body tag.

<html>
    <head>
     <title>{{ meta.title }}</title>
        <meta name="description" content="{{ meta.description }}">
    </head>
    <body>
     {% block content %}
        {% endblock %}
    </body>
</html>

views/home.html

home.html is homepage. Have custom title and content, extend the main.html for layout.

<!-- extend layout -->
{% extends 'parts/main.html' %}
 
<!-- fill content -->
{% block content %}
    <p>{{ home.message }}</p>
{% endblock %}
 

model/home.js

home.js is data collections for home page.

module.exports = {
    title: 'Home Page Sample',
    message: 'We\'re on Home Page'
}

views/about.html

about.html is About Page.

<!-- extend layout -->
{% extends 'parts/main.html' %}
 
<!-- fill content -->
{% block content %}
    <p>{{ home.message }}</p>
{% endblock %}
 

model/about.js

home.js is data collections for home page.

module.exports = {
    title: 'About Page Sample',
    description: 'Desc ipsum is lorem dolor sit amet'
    message: 'We\'re on Home Page'
}

When we visiting http://localhost/home, Stater serve homepage and the browser title will be Home Page Sampe, taken from model/home.js.

When we visiting http://localhost/about, Stater serve about and the browser title will be About Page Sampe, taken from model/about.js. And the meta description also changed (only for about page) since on about.js have title and description.

Features

NodeJS Server

Stater is nodejs based app. So we don't need to run our template on Apache, Nginx etc with setting up host before we use it. We can do many things with our template since the template is the server itself. We can start or stop it at anytime we need. Stater also comes with CLI support. So to start the server we can just run ./stater start.

Automatic Routing

I have set it up to automatically detecting routes. So we don't need to manually setting the router. Just add html files to views folder and its will become a router path. Example, we add home.html to views folder then we can visit it with http://localhost/home. Yes, we don't need the .html extension to visit the page. By default http://localhost/ path is rendering home.html. So don't remove it.

Express and Swig

Stater using Express as middleware and Swig as view engine, since Express is easy to use and Swig really makes our work done without any headache. I love the Swig layouting and feature. Thats why we don't need to compile the htmls (Usually using grunt-swig-templates) before we can access it or see the changes. Pages is served and rendered directly without need to render other pages (htmls) that we don't need to access it.

Model

Stater is supporting data model, and I already set it up to automatically controll the model and views. Say it MVaC (Model View autoControll) :D just kidding. Since I've setting it, we don't need to manually setup the model, view and controller (except our template needs huge things). Everytimes we requesting page from browser, Stater will lookup to model collections. If model matched with requested page found, then Stater will use it to change global data (e.g meta-title and meta-description). Example, for home.html page, we add home.js model, about/company.html we add about.company.js model. Then we can use all data in

Live Reload

Templating without live reload is really painfully. But don't worry, Stater have done our job to setup livereload feature. Carefully configured, so we can forget about time to wait grunt or gulp finished the tasks. Usually (me) we watch for file changes and then run grunt/gulp tasks and finally trigger livereload. Thoose tasks will fast if don't have big data. But if we serve little big data, the tasks process will take time. Example, we change our javascript file but we set it up to concat and minify the jses (including libraries) to reduce http the request and quality code. Imagine if we concat Angular, jQuery, Modernizr, Gsap, D3JS, and our custom scripts. The concat and minify time is not make sense with our changes (e.g change data to info in our scripts). And actually, we really don't need it on development. We don't need to concat/minify javascripts on development to safe our time. And for that, Stater help us to ensure we don't lost our time on development and deliver high quality code on production.

Publish

Yes, our job is delivering static HTML template. So don't worry about the server since we only use the server (or really needs the server) for development purpose (to get speed while working). Anytime we need to publish our work (whether finished or not), simply run ./stater build and YIHHAA!! Our template compiled to build folder. All pages and assets will be there, and all pages will exact same with what we get on browser (direct render), since model and views automatically controlled.


Watch the Video

Stater

Installation

Before installing Stater, we need to ensure our machine already have NodeJS, Bower, Forever and Sails Blueprint Generator.

Install Bower

$ npm install -g bower

Install Forever

$ npm install -g forever

Install Sails Blueprint Generator

$ npm install -g sails-blueprint-generate

Installing Stater

$ sailsgen project-name

and fill then informations asked by sailsgen.

You can also clone this repo to get started with Stater.

After installing Stater, you can start the server by:

cd project-name
$ ./stater develop --verbose

After server started, you can try to visit your server by opening browser from terminal or directly from browser. Example:

$ open http://localhost:8042

To show the available commands, type:

$ ./stater help

Documentation is not yet finished

Dependencies (15)

Dev Dependencies (0)

    Package Sidebar

    Install

    npm i stater-swig

    Weekly Downloads

    7

    Version

    1.4.2

    License

    MIT

    Last publish

    Collaborators

    • mahdaen