Use handlebars.js templates with the asset pipeline and sprockets
ALPHA
Are your handlebars.js
templates littering your Rails views with script
tags? Wondering why the nifty Rails 3.1 asset pipeline streamlines all your Javascript except for your Handlebars templates? Wouldn't it be nice to have your Handlebars templates compiled, compressed, and cached like your other Javascript?
Yea, I think so too. That is why I wrote handlebars_assets. Give your Handlebars templates their own files (including partials) and have them compiled, compressed, and cached as part of the Rails 3.1 asset pipeline!
Using sprockets
with Sinatra or another framework? handlebars_assets works outside of Rails too (as of v0.2.0)
Installation
Load handlebars_assets
in your Gemfile
as part of the assets
group
group :assets do
gem 'handlebars_assets'
end
Compiling your Javascript templates in the Rails asset pipeline
Require handlebars.vm.js
in your Javascript manifest (i.e. application.js
)
//= require handlebars.vm
If you need to compile your Javascript templates in the browser as well, you should instead require handlebars.js
(which is significantly larger)
//= require handlebars
Precompiling
handlebars_assets
also works when you are precompiling your assets. If you are deploying to Heroku, be sure to read the Rails guide and in your config/application.rb
set:
config.assets.initialize_on_precompile = false
Templates directory
You should locate your templates with your other assets, for example app/assets/templates
. In your Javascript manifest file, use require_tree
to pull in the templates
//= require_tree ../templates
The template file
Write your Handlebars templates as standalone files in your templates directory. Organize the templates similarly to Rails views.
For example, if you have new, edit, and show templates for a Contact model
templates/
contacts/
new.jst.hbs
edit.jst.hbs
show.jst.hbs
Your file extensions tell the asset pipeline how to process the file. Use .hbs
to compile the template with Handlebars. Combine it with .jst
to add the compiled template to the JST
global variable.
If your file is templates/contacts/new.jst.hbs
, the asset pipeline will generate Javascript code
- Compile the Handlebars template to Javascript code
- Add the template code to the
JST
global under the namecontacts/new
You can then invoke the resulting template in your application's Javascript
JST['contacts/new'](context);
Partials
If you begin the name of the template with an underscore, it will be recognized as a partial. You can invoke partials inside a template using the Handlebars partial syntax:
Invoke a {{> partial }}
Important! Handlebars does not understand nested partials and neither does this engine. No matter how nested, the partial is named from the asset's basename. The following will lead to much frustration (so don't do it :)
templates/
contacts/
_form.hbs
todos/
_form.hbs
TODO document Sinatra setup
Thanks
This gem is standing on the shoulders of giants.
Thank you Yehuda Katz (@wycats) for handlebars.js and lots of other code I use every day.
Thank you Charles Lowell (@cowboyd) for therubyracer and handlebars.rb.
Contributing
Once you've made your great commits
- Fork
- Create a topic branch - git checkout -b my_branch
- Push to your branch - git push origin my_branch
- Create a Pull Request from your branch
- That's it!
Author
- Les Hill (@leshill)
Contributors
- Matt Burke (@spraints) : execjs support
- (@kendagriff) : 1.8.7 compatibility
- Thorben Schröder (@walski) : 3.1 asset group for precompile
- Erwan Barrier (@erwanb) : Support for plain sprockets