Reusable email layout in MJML - node.js

I evaluate mjml as a tool for making my days less horrible when I need to do something with transactional emails and there is one feature that I can't find any informations of but I'm just sure there is a way for people to do it right.
Reusable layout.
I used to write emails in pug and it was basic feature there. I know mjml wants to be a framework and not template engine but they do have "mj-include" and layout is kind of reverse include.
Pseudo code explaining what I would like to achieve:
layout.mjml
<mjml>
<mj-head>...</mj-head>
<mj-body>
... some header
<mj-this-is-where-content-comes><</mj-this-is-where-content-comes>
... some footer
</mj-body>
</mjml>
welcome-user.mjml
<mj-layout src="./layout.mjml">
<mj-text>
Hi user!
</mj-text>
</mj-layout>
Based on my reading I see few ways how people could deal with it:
mj-include <= documentation examples stands on that, still requires lots of copy and paste for each template
wrapping template with layout in compile process <= I'm loosing the power of mjml tools in this case, I could though set-up watchers that compile and wrap my code in layout for each change
custom component <= seems like the best option but aren't reusable layouts such a common case that if it would be a solution then by now I would probably find custom component for it

Related

Custom HTML in Jade Template

I'd like to accomplish something in jade, but not sure on the best approach. I want to have several product pages on a website, and most of these product pages will have the same layout and design, so I'm going to create one jade template. However, I would love to be able to insert some custom HTML for a couple of product pages in particular.
Can I use an include or something to optionally add custom HTML?
You could use jade partials to show different snippets depending on some conditions in the templating context:
if user.description
!=partial(template name[, options])
Or you might use template inheritance and render a different template depending on the same conditional, but this time in your controller. I would probably do the latter.

For loops and layout support in express.js template engine

I come from a PHP background and I've used frameworks such as CakePHP and Laravel and it is quite easy to work with layouts and views in all of them.
And the possibility of using PHP inside those template engines provide a way to do things such as:
<?php for($i=0; $i<1000; $i++){ ?>
<td>demo</td>
<? } ?>
Now, starting with Node and express.js I found out template engines seems quite basic here. I've tried hjs, hogan, swig, mustache, handlebars... none of them offers both :
Layout support (templates and views)
A way to do loops like the one I named before.
Am I missing something? Am I asking for too much?
Which one would you recommend me?
A lot of the template engines for Javascript take the philosophical view that it's better to enforce a fairly strict separation between logic and presentation, meaning that the complexity of code/logic allowed in the template is deliberately limited. For a quick overview of this topic, see http://blog.startifact.com/posts/older/the-new-hot-thing-in-web-development-client-side-templating-languages.html (it's about client-side templating, but since it's Javascript, a lot of those same template languages are the ones popular in node.js / Express). This idea of logicless templates exists in the PHP world as well, it's just not as common.
For a more academic treatment of this subject, see this paper: http://www.cs.usfca.edu/~parrt/papers/mvc.templates.pdf. (The author is also the author of a popular template engine for Java called StringTemplate.) The author makes a lot of good points, and in general I agree with the idea of logicless templates, but there are times when it can be inconvenient and I find myself more on the fence about it...see this link for some further considerations. Obviously there are also those who want to be able to anything from a template (as you can in PHP) and believe it's fine to rely on the self-restraint of the programmer not to put too much code in the view, which is where template engines like EJS come in.
Having said all that, it's important to note that what you want to achieve is possible in Handlebars (which is one of the "logicless" languages) and probably many of the others you tried as well. To do it in Handlebars, you'd need to create a custom helper. This might be what you're looking for:
https://www.npmjs.org/package/handlebars-helper-repeat
Example usage:
{{#repeat 10}}
{{> button }}
{{/repeat}}
You could also extend it to be able to support arguments to be able to control the starting number or increment, although that would probably be getting into logic that might be better done in the JS code (according to the Handlebars philosophy) while preparing the data for the template.
With regard to layouts, the closest thing in Handlebars (which is the template engine I'm most familiar with) is partials. This link provides a good introduction to those: http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/handlebars-js-part-2-partials-and-helpers.
Personally I'm a big fan of the template language in an awesome framework (built on Express) called Derby. Its template language is similar to Handlebars, but comes with a couple of handy extensions - just enough to make it a bit more convenient to use without allowing too much logic to creep into the template. Unfortunately I don't think there's a standalone version of it (i.e. you have to use the full Derby framework), but you could create custom helpers in Handlebars to achieve a similar effect.

How to integrate a "shortcode" feature in Sharepoint wikis

I would like to "customize" my sharepoint wiki by doing something very simple.
I would like to be able to run a regex on wiki pages looking for [math] and [\math] tags, then take the expression written in the middle (assume this value is stored in a variable x) and replace the whole block by
"<img src='http://latex.codecogs.com/gif.latex?" + x +"'/>"
So for example, the shortcode [math]a^2+b^2=c^2[\math] should end up being displayed as an image as follows (thanks to this online tool):
I have never developed anything in sharepoint, and I've been using it for a week.
Can anybody tell me how I should proceed to add such a feature (if it's possible)?
You can use existing solution like ShortPoint.
Sure - this is simmply done via two methods - 1) You could modify the page directly using SharePoint designer - fly in the code where you want it, 2) The better way - add your code to text file, upload the text file to a document library then use the Content Editor web part, drop it on the page, point it (through the properties) to the text file.
Note: The Content Editor part will allow you to modify the background HTML/Script, however, it has a nasty habit of overriding your code and I've had it actually duplicate itself (adding repeat scripts). Using the Text file eliminiates that issue.
If i understand you correctly, I don't think that the content editor web part is the solution you are looking for. I believe you are wanting to implement a shortcodes solution such as that found in WordPress, correct? In that case, the issue becomes a bit more complex. To really get any kind of custom code that would execute at the necessary stages, you would need a custom solution either implementing additional functionality in the existing rich text editor, or roll your own custom rich text editor.
At that point, you would have complete control over how the content is parsed and interpreted, so you could have both server-side and client side processing. You could make use of templating engines like mustache or handlebars.
To do this, you would need to write your own Custom field type, inherit from SPFieldMultiLineText, override the property FieldRenderingControl, and return your custom control. That way you have the option of implementing it in several different places (custom pege fields in a page layout, custom webparts, custom lists, etc.) and you still get the benefits you want from the out-of-the-box control.

Any way in Expression Engine to simulate Wordpress' shortcode functionality?

I'm relatively new to Expression Engine, and as I'm learning it I am seeing some stuff missing that WordPress has had for a while. A big one for me is shortcodes, since I will use these to allow CMS users to place more complex content in place with their other content.
I'm not seeing any real equivalent to this in EE, apart from a forthcoming plugin that's in private beta.
As an initial test I'm attempting to fake shortcodes by using delimited strings (e.g. #foo#) in the content field, then using a regex to pull those out and pass them to a function that can retrieve the content out of EE's database.
This brings me to a second question, which is that in looking at EE's API docs, there doesn't appear to be a simple means of retrieving the channel entries programmatically (thinking of something akin to WP's built-in get_posts function).
So my questions are:
a) Can this be done?
b) If so, is my method of approaching it reasonable? Or is there something stupidly obvious I'm missing in my approach?
To reiterate, my main objective here is to have some means of allowing people managing content to drop a code in place in their content that will be replaced with channel content.
Thanks for any advice or help you can give me.
Here's a simple example of the functionality you're looking for.
1) Start by installing Low Replace.
2) Create two Global Variables called gv_hello and gv_goodbye with the values "Hello" and "Goodbye" respectively.
3) Put this text into the body of an entry:
[say_hello]
Nice to see you.
[say_goodbye]
4) Put this into your template, wrapping the Low Replace tag around your body field.
{exp:low_replace
find="[say_hello]|[say_goodbye]"
replace="{gv_hello}|{gv_goodbye}"
multiple="yes"
}
{body}
{/exp:low_replace}
5) It should output this into your browser:
Hello
Nice to see you.
Goodbye
Obviously, this is a really simple example. You can put full blown HTML into your global variable. For example, we've used that to render a complex, interactive graphic that isn't editable but can be easily dropped into a page by any editor.
Unfortunately, due to parse order issues, EE tags won't work inside Global Variables. If you need EE tags in your short code output, you'll need to use Low Variables addon instead of Global Variables.
Continued from the comment:
Do you have examples of the kind of shortcodes you want to support/include? Because i have doubts if controlling the page-layout from a text-field or wysiwyg-field is the way to go.
If you want editors to be able to adjust layout or show/hide extra parts on the page, giving them access to some extra fields in the channel, is (imo) much more manageable and future-proof. For instance some selectfields, a relationship (or playa) field, or a matrix, to let them choose which parts to include/exclude on a page, or which entry from another channel to pull content from.
As said in the comment: i totally understand if you want to replace some #foo# tags with images or data from another field (see other answers: nsm-transplant, low_replace). But, giving an editor access to shortcodes and picking them out, is like writing a template-engine to generate ee-template code for the ee-template-engine.
Using some custom fields to let editors pick and choose parts to embed is, i think, much more manageable.
That being said, you could make a plugin to parse the shortcodes from a textareas content, and then program a lot, to fetch data from other modules you want to support. For channel entries you could build out of the channel data library by objectiveHTML. https://github.com/objectivehtml/Channel-Data
I hear you, I too miss shortcodes from WP -- though the reason they work so easily there is the ubiquity of the_content(). With the great flexibility of EE comes fewer blanket solutions.
I'd suggest looking at NSM Transplant. It should fit the bill for you.
There is also a plugin called Shortcode, which you can find here at
Devot-ee
A quote from the page:
Shortcode aims to allow for more dynamic use of content by authors and
editors, allowing for injection of reusable bits of content or even
whole pieces of functionality into any field in EE

drupal breadcrumb experience

I was wondering what people are using for generating breadcrumbs in drupal. I've seen various modules and was wondering which ones people have had success with.
Thanks for any thoughts.
Bad news from me: personally I always custom-write breadcrumb code because every professional job I do has different requirements and no generic breadcrumb module can do it all.
I used to create a hook_preprocess_page function then issued my own hook to see if any module would like to rebuild the breadcrumbs - I do it this way so that, for instance, if I have a specialised node I can put the breadcrumb-building code for that node type into its support module (and not try to cram it all into one ever-expanding function - it's the Drupal Way).
Nowadays I use ctools plugins instead of a module hook in the hook_preprocess_page since you can do additional clever stuff.
(If using Panels you'd have to create a new breadcrumb panel pane and work from there. Word to the wise: Panels destroys $_GET['q'] which can make it harder to build breadcrumbs in some situations.)

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