Lotus::View

A View layer for Lotus.

It's based on a separation between views and templates.

A view is an object that encapsulates the presentation logic of a page. A template is a file that defines the semantic and visual elements of a page. In order to show a result to a user, a template must be rendered by a view.

Keeping things separated helps to declutter templates and models from presentation logic. Also, since views are objects, they are easily testable. If you ever used Mustache, you are already aware of the advantages.

Like all the other Lotus components, it can be used as a standalone framework or within a full Lotus application.

Status

Contact

Home page: http://lotusrb.org
Mailing List: http://lotusrb.org/mailing-list
API Doc: http://rdoc.info/gems/lotus-view
Bugs/Issues: https://github.com/lotus/view/issues
Support: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/lotus-ruby
Chat: https://gitter.im/lotus/chat

Rubies

Lotus::View supports Ruby (MRI) 2+

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'lotus-view'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install lotus-view

Usage

Conventions

Templates are searched under Lotus::View.configuration.root, set this value according to your app structure (eg. "app/templates").
A view will look for a template with a file name that is composed by its full class name (eg. "articles/index").
A template must have two concatenated extensions: one for the format and one for the engine (eg. ".html.erb").
The framework must be loaded before rendering the first time: Lotus::View.load!.

Views

A simple view looks like this:

require 'lotus/view'

module Articles
  class Index
    include Lotus::View
  end
end

Suppose that we want to render a list of articles:

require 'lotus/view'

module Articles
  class Index
    include Lotus::View
  end
end

Lotus::View.configure do
  root 'app/templates'
end

Lotus::View.load!

path     = Lotus::View.configuration.root.join('articles/index.html.erb')
template = Lotus::View::Template.new(path)
articles = ArticleRepository.all

Articles::Index.new(template, articles: articles).render

While this code is working fine, it's inefficient and verbose, because we are loading a template from the filesystem for each rendering attempt. Also, this is strictly related to the HTML format, what if we want to manage other formats?

require 'lotus/view'

module Articles
  class Index
    include Lotus::View
  end

  class AtomIndex < Index
    format :atom
  end
end

Lotus::View.configure do
  root 'app/templates'
end

Lotus::View.load!

articles = ArticleRepository.all

Articles::Index.render(format: :html, articles: articles)
  # => This will use Articles::Index
  #    and "articles/index.html.erb"

Articles::Index.render(format: :atom, articles: articles)
  # => This will use Articles::AtomIndex
  #    and "articles/index.atom.erb"

Articles::Index.render(format: :xml, articles: articles)
  # => This will raise a Lotus::View::MissingTemplateError

Locals

All the objects passed in the context are called locals, they are available both in the view and in the template:

require 'lotus/view'

module Articles
  class Show
    include Lotus::View

    def authors
      article.authors.map(&:full_name).join ', '
    end
  end
end

<h1><%= article.title %></h1>
<article>
  <%= article.content %>
</article>

All the methods defined in the view are accessible from the template:

<h2><%= authors %></h2>

For convenience, they are also available to the view as a Hash, accessed through the locals method.

require 'lotus/view'

module Articles
  class Show
    include Lotus::View

    # This view already responds to `#article` because there is an element in
    # the locals with the same key.
    #
    # In order to allow developers to override those methods, and decorate a
    # single locals object, a view has a Hash with the same values.
    #
    # If we had implemented this method like this:
    #
    #   def article
    #     ArticlePresenter.new(article)
    #   end
    #
    # We would have generated a `SystemStackError` (stack level too deep).
    def article
      ArticlePresenter.new(locals[:article])
    end
  end
end

Custom rendering

Since a view is an object, you can override #render and provide your own rendering policy:

require 'lotus/view'

module Articles
  class Show
    include Lotus::View
    format :json

    def render
      ArticleSerializer.new(article).to_json
    end
  end
end

Articles::Show.render({format: :json, article: article})
  # => This will render from ArticleSerializer,
  #    without the need of a template

Format

The .format DSL is used to declare one or more mime types that a view is able to render. These values are arbitrary, just be sure to create a corresponding template.

require 'lotus/view'

module Articles
  class Show
    include Lotus::View
    format :custom
  end
end

Articles::Show.render({format: :custom, article: article})
  # => This will render "articles/show.custom.erb"

Engines

The builtin rendering engine is ERb. However, Lotus::View supports countless rendering engines out of the box. Require your library of choice before requiring 'lotus/view', and it will just work.

require 'haml'
require 'lotus/view'

module Articles
  class Show
    include Lotus::View
  end
end

Articles::Show.render({format: :html, article: article})
  # => This will render "articles/show.html.haml"

This is the list of the supported engines. They are listed in order of higher precedence, for a given extension. For instance, if ERubis is loaded, it will be preferred over ERb to render .erb templates.

Engine	Extensions
Erubis	erb, rhtml, erubis
ERb	erb, rhtml
Redcarpet	markdown, mkd, md
RDiscount	markdown, mkd, md
Kramdown	markdown, mkd, md
Maruku	markdown, mkd, md
BlueCloth	markdown, mkd, md
Asciidoctor	ad, adoc, asciidoc
Builder	builder
CSV	rcsv
CoffeeScript	coffee
WikiCloth	wiki, mediawiki, mw
Creole	wiki, creole
Etanni	etn, etanni
Haml	haml
Less	less
Liquid	liquid
Markaby	mab
Nokogiri	nokogiri
Plain	html
RDoc	rdoc
Radius	radius
RedCloth	textile
Sass	sass
Scss	scss
Slim	slim
String	str
Yajl	yajl

Root

Template lookup is performed under the Lotus::View.configuration.root directory. You can specify a different path on a per view basis:

class ViewWithDifferentRoot
  include Lotus::View

  root 'path/to/root'
end

Template

The template file must be located under the relevant root and must match the class name:

puts Lotus::View.configuration.root # => #<Pathname:app/templates>
Articles::Index.template            # => "articles/index"

Each view can specify a different template:

module Articles
  class Create
    include Lotus::View

    template 'articles/new'
  end
end

Articles::Create.template  # => "articles/new"

Partials

Partials can be rendered within a template:

<%= render partial: 'articles/form', locals: { secret: 23 } %>

It will look for a template articles/_form.html.erb and make available both the view's and partial's locals (eg. article and secret).

Templates

Templates can be rendered within another template:

<%= render template: 'articles/new', locals: { errors: {} } %>

It will render articles/new.html.erb and make available both the view's and templates's locals (eg. article and errors).

Layouts

Layouts are wrappers for views. Layouts may serve to reuse common markup.

class ApplicationLayout
  include Lotus::Layout

  def page_title
    'Title:'
  end
end

module Articles
  class Index
    include Lotus::View
    layout :application

    def page_title
      "#{ layout.page_title } articles"
    end
  end

  class RssIndex < Index
    format :rss
    layout false
  end
end

Articles::Index.render(format: :html) # => Will use ApplicationLayout
Articles::Index.render(format: :rss)  # => Will use nothing

As per convention, layout templates are located under Lotus::View.root or ApplicationLayout.root and use the underscored name (eg. ApplicationLayout => application.html.erb).

Optional Content

If we want to render optional contents such as sidebar links or page specific javascripts, we can use #content It accepts a key that represents a method that should be available within the rendering context. That context is made of the locals, and the methods that view and layout respond to. If the context can't dispatch that method, it returns nil.

Given the following layout template.

<!doctype HTML>
<html>
  <!-- ... -->
  <body>
    <!-- ... -->
    <%= content :footer %>
  </body>
</html>

We have two views, one responds to #footer (Products::Show) and the other doesn't (Products::Index). When the first is rendered, content gives back the returning value of #footer. In the other case, content returns nil.

module Products
  class Index
    include Lotus::View
  end

  class Show
    include Lotus::View

    def footer
      "contents for footer"
    end
  end
end

Presenters

The goal of a presenter is to wrap and reuse presentational logic for an object.

class Map
  attr_reader :locations

  def initialize(locations)
    @locations = locations
  end

  def location_names
    @locations.join(', ')
  end
end

class MapPresenter
  include Lotus::Presenter

  def count
    locations.count
  end

  def location_names
    super.upcase
  end

  def inspect_object
    @object.inspect
  end
end

map = Map.new(['Rome', 'Boston'])
presenter = MapPresenter.new(map)

# access a map method
puts presenter.locations # => ['Rome', 'Boston']

# access presenter concrete methods
puts presenter.count # => 2

# uses super to access original object implementation
puts presenter.location_names # => 'ROME, BOSTON'

# it has private access to the original object
puts presenter.inspect_object # => #<Map:0x007fdeada0b2f0 @locations=["Rome", "Boston"]>

Configuration

Lotus::View can be configured with a DSL that determines its behavior. It supports a few options:

require 'lotus/view'

Lotus::View.configure do
  # Set the root path where to search for templates
  # Argument: String, Pathname, #to_pathname, defaults to the current directory
  #
  root '/path/to/root'

  # Default encoding for templates
  # Argument: String, defaults to utf-8
  #
  default_encoding 'koi-8'

  # Set the Ruby namespace where to lookup for views
  # Argument: Class, Module, String, defaults to Object
  #
  namespace 'MyApp::Views'

  # Set the global layout
  # Argument: Symbol, defaults to nil
  #
  layout :application

  # Set modules that you want to include in all views
  # Argument: Block
  #
  prepare do
    include MyCustomModule
    before { do_something }
  end
end

All those global configurations can be overwritten at a finer grained level: views. Each view and layout has its own copy of the global configuration, so that changes are inherited from the top to the bottom, but not bubbled up in the opposite direction.

require 'lotus/view'

Lotus::View.configure do
  root '/path/to/root'
end

class Show
  include Lotus::View
  root '/another/root'
end

Lotus::View.configuration.root # => #<Pathname:/path/to/root>
Show.root                      # => #<Pathname:/another/root>

Reusability

Lotus::View can be used as a singleton framework as seen in this README. The application code includes Lotus::View or Lotus::Layout directly and the configuration is unique per Ruby process.

While this is convenient for tiny applications, it doesn't fit well for more complex scenarios, where we want micro applications to coexist together.

require 'lotus/view'

Lotus::View.configure do
  root '/path/to/root'
end

module WebApp
  View = Lotus::View.duplicate(self)
end

module ApiApp
  View = Lotus::View.duplicate(self) do
    root '/another/root'
  end
end

Lotus::View.configuration.root  # => #<Pathname:/path/to/root>
WebApp::View.configuration.root # => #<Pathname:/path/to/root>, inherited from Lotus::View
ApiApp::View.configuration.root # => #<Pathname:/another/root>

The code above defines WebApp::View and WebApp::Layout, to be used for the WebApp views, while ApiApp::View and ApiApp::Layout have a different configuration.

Thread safety

Lotus::View is thread safe during the runtime, but it isn't during the loading process. Please load the framework as the last thing before your application starts. Also, be sure that your app provides a thread safe context while it's loaded.

Mutex.new.synchronize do
  Lotus::View.load!
end

After this operation, all the class variables are frozen, in order to prevent accidental modifications at the run time.

This is not necessary, when Lotus::View is used within a Lotus application.

Security

The output of views and presenters is always autoescaped.

ATTENTION: In order to prevent XSS attacks, please read the instructions below. Because Lotus::View supports a lot of template engines, the escape happens at the level of the view. Most of the time everything happens automatically, but there are still some corner cases that need your manual intervention.

View autoescape

require 'lotus/view'

User = Struct.new(:name)

module Users
  class Show
    include Lotus::View

    def user_name
      user.name
    end
  end
end

# ERB template
# <div id="user_name"><%= user_name %></div>

user = User.new("<script>alert('xss')</script>")

# THIS IS USEFUL FOR UNIT TESTING:
template = Lotus::View::Template.new('users/show.html.erb')
view     = Users::Show.new(template, user: user)
view.user_name # => "&lt;script&gt;alert(&apos;xss&apos;)&lt;&#x2F;script&gt;"

# THIS IS THE RENDERING OUTPUT:
Users::Show.render(format: :html, user: user)
# => <div id="user_name">&lt;script&gt;alert(&apos;xss&apos;)&lt;&#x2F;script&gt;</div>

Presenter autoescape

require 'lotus/view'

User = Struct.new(:name)

class UserPresenter
  include Lotus::Presenter
end

user      = User.new("<script>alert('xss')</script>")
presenter = UserPresenter.new(user)

presenter.name # => "&lt;script&gt;alert(&apos;xss&apos;)&lt;&#x2F;script&gt;"

Escape entire objects

We have seen that concrete methods in views are automatically escaped. This is great, but tedious if you need to print a lot of information from a given object.

Imagine you have user as part of the view locals. If you want to use <%= user.name %> directly, you're still vulnerable to XSS attacks.

You have two alternatives:

To use a concrete presenter (eg. UserPresenter)
Escape the entire object (see the example below)

Both those solutions allow you to keep the template syntax unchanged, but to have a safer output.

require 'lotus/view'

User = Struct.new(:first_name, :last_name)

module Users
  class Show
    include Lotus::View

    def user
      _escape locals[:user]
    end
  end
end

# ERB template:
#
# <div id="first_name">
#   <%= user.first_name %>
# </div>
# <div id="last_name">
#   <%= user.last_name %>
# </div>

first_name = "<script>alert('first_name')</script>"
last_name  = "<script>alert('last_name')</script>"

user = User.new(first_name, last_name)
html = Users::Show.render(format: :html, user: user)

html
  # =>
  # <div id="first_name">
  #   &lt;script&gt;alert(&apos;first_name&apos;)&lt;&#x2F;script&gt;
  # </div>
  # <div id="last_name">
  #   &lt;script&gt;alert(&apos;last_name&apos;)&lt;&#x2F;script&gt;
  # </div>

Raw contents

You can use _raw to mark an output as safe. Please note that this may open your application to XSS attacks.

Raw contents in views

require 'lotus/view'

User = Struct.new(:name)

module Users
  class Show
    include Lotus::View

    def user_name
      _raw user.name
    end
  end
end

# ERB template
# <div id="user_name"><%= user_name %></div>

user = User.new("<script>alert('xss')</script>")
html = Users::Show.render(format: :html, user: user)

html
# => <div id="user_name"><script>alert('xss')</script></div>

Raw contents in presenters

require 'lotus/view'

User = Struct.new(:name)

class UserPresenter
  include Lotus::Presenter

  def first_name
    _raw @object.first_name
  end
end

user      = User.new("<script>alert('xss')</script>")
presenter = UserPresenter.new(user)

presenter.name # => "<script>alert('xss')</script>"

Versioning

Lotus::View uses Semantic Versioning 2.0.0

Contributing

Fork it
Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
Create new Pull Request