requirejs-underscore-tpl

This is an AMD loader for Underscore.js micro-templates. It's a better maintained fork of jfparadis/requirejs-tpl and can be used as a drop-in replacement to ZeeAgency/requirejs-tpl.

Overview

• Uses the _.template() engine provided by Underscore.js.
• Uses the official text loader plugin provided by Require.js.
• 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 Require.js (all extensions are assumed).

Installation

To install it via NPM.js:

npm install requirejs-undertemplate

Then configure require.js:

require.config({
  paths: {
    underscore: 'node_modules/underscore/underscore',
    text: 'node_modules/requirejs-text/text'
    tpl: 'node_modules/requirejs-undertemplate/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'
  }
});

Underscore allows you to configure the style of templating (more specifically, the syntax for how variables are interpolated, conditional statements and comments). Refer to the templateSettings variable.

Similarly to setting the template file extension, you can set templateSettings in your main.js:

require.config({

    // Use Mustache style syntax for variable interpolation

    templateSettings: {
        evaluate : /\{\[([\s\S]+?)\]\}/g,
        interpolate : /\{\{([\s\S]+?)\}\}/g
    }
});

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

You'll need a web-server to serve the files. requirejs-text is not compatible with the file:// protocol and thus opening index.hml directly from your browser will not work.

You can use the Node.js-based http-server package to serve the example files.

  $ npm install
  $ ./node_modules/.bin/http-server

Go to http://localhost:8080/example. Your browser should load:

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

Go to http://localhost:8080/example-build. Your browser should load:

• index.html
• require.js
• main.js