requirejs-tpl

This is an AMD loader for UnderscoreJS micro-templates which can be used as a drop-in replacement to ZeeAgency/requirejs-tpl

Overview

• Uses the _.template() engine maintained by the UnderscoreJS team.
• Uses the official text loader plugin maintained by the RequireJS team.
• You don't have to specify the template file extension (.html is assumed, but this is configurable).

Notes:

• Both libraries can be removed at build-time using r.js.
• The extension .html is assumed, and this makes loading templates similar to loading JavaScript files with RequireJS (all extensions are assumed).

Changelog

0.0.1 Initial version

0.0.2 Various updates:

• Add template path option to tpl.js (thanks drewrichards)
• Updated require.js to 2.1.8 , and r.js to 2.1.8
• Updated underscore.js to 1.5.2

Installation

Download UnderscoreJS and RequireJS-text:

• UndescoreJS
• RequireJS-text

Typically, you would place them in a scripts/libs folder then create a scripts/main.js file to alias them and to shim UndescoreJS:

require.config({
  paths: {
    underscore: 'libs/underscore',
    text: 'libs/text'
    tpl: 'libs/tpl'
  },
  shim: {
    'underscore': {
      exports: '_'
    }
  }
});

Usage

Specify the plugin using tpl! followed by the template file:

require(['backbone', 'tpl!template'], function (Backbone, template) {
  return Backbone.View.extend({
    initialize: function(){
      this.render();
    },
    render: function(){
      this.$el.html(template({message: 'hello'}));
  });
});

Customization

You can specify the template file extension in your main.js:

require.config({

  // some paths and shims

  tpl: {
    extension: '.tpl' // default = '.html'
  }
});

Optimization

This plugin is compatible with r.js.

Optimization brings three benefits to a project:

• The templates are bundled within your code and not dynamically loaded which reduces the number of HTTP requests.
• The templates are pre-compiled before being bundled which reduces the work the client has to do.
• You can use the compiled, non-minimized version of the templates to step over the code in a debugger.

The most important build options are:

stubModules: ['underscore', 'text', 'tpl']

The list of modules to stub out in the optimized file, i.e. the code is replaced with define('module',{}); by r.js

removeCombined: true

Removes from the output folder the files combined into a build.

Example

Using an existing web server

Copy the example and example-build folders to your web server (text is not compatible with the file:// protocol and opening index.hml directly from your browser will not work).

Using a test server

Alternatively, you can use Connect and NodeJS to spin a web server:

Install connect using npm and launch the server with NodeJS:

  $ npm install -g connect
  $ npm link connect
  $ node server.js

Go to http://localhost:9000/example. Your browser should load:

• index.html
• require.js
• main.js
• tpl.js
• underscore.js
• text.js
• message.html

Go to http://localhost:9000/example-build. Your browser should load:

• index.html
• require.js
• main.js