express-dot-example

Project for demonstrating how to integrate dotJS with expressJS with pre-rendering and best practices

How to use

Just clone the repo and npm install.

This will build the dotJS templates as well, thanks to the postinstall script included.

For development, npm run dev (uses nodemon with .jst and .def extensions added, recompiles all templates on any change) For production, npm start (compiles the templates only if the build folder does not exist)

How is this project different?

This project follows the approach given at the official dotJS express example and builds upon it.

Different from the official example, this project seperates the dotjs build and source folders, proposes a way to set dotJS as the express view engine. Also nodemon is set up to work with .jst and .def files. Lastly, it also gives a structure of when and how to compile the templates in terms of achieving the best performance in dev/prod scenarios.

With this setup, dotJS templates are compiled when,

npm install is done.
app is starting in dev mode
app is starting in prod mode without .dotjs_build/ folder

such that no unnecessary compilations is done in production.

How does it work?

When any of the three scenarios above is realized, dotJS package is used for compiling the templates. Files with .jst extension are the base files to be converted into standart javascript files. Files with .def extension can be used for defining partials. Partials defined within .def files cannot be reached explicitly but only can be used in .jst files.

Compiled .jst templates are put into the folder .dotjs_build/ in javascript format, with their respective names.

In runtime, a helper script renderTemplates.js scans the .dotjs_build/ folder and exposes an object of template functions for easy and fast access. Then, this object is used for registering express a template engine.

Compatibility

This project uses const-let declarations and arrow functions. While I have not tried myself, NodeJS ES6 Compatibility Page shows that these functionalities should be fine with NodeJS 6.4.0 and upper.

Contribution