Crate yew_template

Expand description

This crate allows you to separate your HTML from your Rust code when using Yew.

Getting Started

Hello World

<div>
    <p>Hello [name]!</p>
</div>

let html = template_html!("templates/hello.html", name="World");

The code above will actually compile to the following code:

let html = yew::html! {
    <div>
        <p>{"Hello World!"}</p>
    </div>
};

Usage

Variables
Attributes
Struct fields
Expressions
Example: Yew callbacks
Optional variables
Optional elements
Iterators
Minimizing bloat
Virtual elements

Variables

let name = "World";
let html = template_html!("templates/hello.html", name);

Would compile to:

let name = "World";
let html = yew::html! {
    <div>
        <p>{"Hello "}{name}{"!"}</p>
    </div>
};

When the name of your variable isn’t the same as the name in the template, you can use the following syntax:

let other_name = "Yew";
let html = template_html!("templates/hello.html", name=other_name);

Attributes

<div style=[style]>
   <p>Hello [name]!</p>
</div>

let html = template_html!(
    "templates/hello.html",
    name="Yew",
    style="color: red;"
);

Yew-template supports a format!-like syntax in attributes, allowing you to do the following:

<div style="background-color: [bg_color]; color: [text_color];">
   Yew is cool
</div>

Sometimes you want to pass many struct fields as variables to your template, but destructuring the struct would be too verbose.
As when using the actual yew macro, you can just pass the struct and access its fields from the template:

<div>
   <p>Hello [person.first_name] [person.last_name]!</p>
</div>

struct Person {
    first_name: String,
    last_name: String,
}
 
let person = Person {
    first_name: "Edouard".to_string(),
    last_name: "Foobar".to_string()
};
let html = template_html!("templates/fields.html", person);

Expressions

let name_reversed = String::from("dlroW");
let html = template_html!(
    "templates/hello.html",
    name = {
        let mut name = name_reversed.into_bytes();
        name.reverse();
        let name = String::from_utf8(name).unwrap();
        name
    }
);

Which will also display Hello World! as the Yew-code output is as follows:

let name_reversed = String::from("dlroW");
let html = yew::html! {
    <div>
        <p>
            {"Hello "}{{
            let mut name = name_reversed.into_bytes();
            name.reverse();
            let name = String::from_utf8(name).unwrap();
            name
            }}{"!"}
        </p>
    </div>
};

Note that the curly brackets around expressions are required for expressions.

Example with Yew callbacks

<div onclick=[onclick]>
   <p>Hello [name]!</p>
</div>

let link = ctx.link();
let html = template_html!(
    "templates/hello.html",
    name="World",
    onclick={link.callback(|_| Msg::AddOne)}
);

Optional variables

Optional variables are marked with an opt_ prefix or an _opt suffix, at your option. Their value is expected to be an Option<T>.

Optional variables work with optional html elements. Mark an element with the opt attribute to make it optional. An optional element will only be rendered if ALL the optional variables it contains are Some. Note that variables contained by smaller optional elements are excluded from this requirement.

<div>
    <p>Hello [name]!</p>
    <div opt>
        <h2>Age</h2>
        <p>You are [opt_age] years old!</p>
    </div>
</div>

In the example above, the div block will not be shown if opt_age is None.

Let’s see how optional elements can be nested.

<div>
    <p>Hello [name]!</p>
    <div opt>
        <h2>Age</h2>
        <p>You are [opt_age] years old!</p>
        <p opt>And you are born in [opt_birth_city].</p>
    </div>
</div>

Here, both opt_age and opt_birth_city are optional. opt_age would be displayed even if opt_birth_city is None. However, if opt_age is None, opt_birth_city will not be displayed regardless of its value.

From the Rust side, there is no usage difference. Note that curly brackets are required (for now).

let opt_age: Option<u8> = Some(20);
let opt_birth_city: Option<String> = None;
let html = template_html!(
    "templates/opt.html",
    name="John",
    opt_age,
    opt_birth_city
);

In the generated Yew code, if let expressions are used. As a result, optional variables based on expressions behave differently as they are only evaluated once for each optional element using them.

Optional elements

Sometimes optional variables are not suitable for making an element optional. You might need a logic that is more complex than just checking if a variable is Some or None. In this case, you can use optional elements.

Elements can be given a present-if attribute. The value will be evaluated at runtime as a boolean expression. If the expression is true, the element will be rendered. Otherwise, it will be skipped.

<div present-if=[condition]>
    <p>1+1 = 3</p>
</div>
<div present-if=![condition]> <!-- Negation is supported -->
    <p>1+1 != 3</p>
</div>

let html = template_html!("templates/present_if.html", condition={ 1+1==3 });

Iterators

Iterators work similarly to optional variables. The iterator variables are marked with an iter_ prefix or an _iter suffix, at your option. The looping html element is marked with the iter attribute. The element will reproduce until one of the iterators it depends on is empty.

<div>
    <h2>Contributors:</h2>
    <ul>
        <li iter>[contributors_iter] ([commits_iter] commits)</li>
    </ul>
</div>

let contributors = vec!["John", "Jane", "Jack"]; // Owned values need to be declared as `let` or they would be freed before the template is rendered.
let html = template_html!(
    "templates/iter.html",
    contributors_iter = {contributors.iter()},
    commits_iter = {[42, 21, 7].iter()}
);

The code above will act as the following for Yew:

let contributors = vec!["John", "Jane", "Jack"];
let html = yew::html! {
    <div>
        <h2>{"Contributors:"}</h2>
        <ul>
            {{
                let mut contributors_iter = { contributors.iter() };
                let mut commits_iter = { [42, 21, 7].iter() };
                let mut fragments = Vec::new();
                while let (Some(contributor), Some(commits)) = (contributors_iter.next(), commits_iter.next()) {
                    fragments.push(html! { <li>{contributor}{" ("}{commits}{" commits)"}</li> });
                }
                fragments.into_iter().collect::<Html>()
            }}
        </ul>
   </div>
};

As of now, Yew item references in lists are not supported. This will be inmplemented in the future as the Yew documentation recommends, though the performance impact has been found to be negligible in most cases.

Minimizing bloat

The whole point of using this crate is making your code more readable than when using Yew directly. However, you will still find yourself writing lines of code that do not carry that much meaning. We already saw that variable_ident=variable_ident can be shortened to variable_ident. But it could even be completely omitted! Add ... at the end of your macro call to tell that undefined variables should be retrieved from local variables with the same name. Taking the “Hello world” example:

<div>
    <p>Hello [name]!</p>
</div>

let name = "World";
let html = template_html!("templates/hello.html", ...);

This behavior is disabled by default because undefined variables are often errors.

Virtual elements

Yew-template often requires you to add attributes on html elements such as iter, opt or present-if. In rare cases, you don’t have any suitable element to add these attributes to, and adding a wrapper element would break your CSS. In this case, you can use virtual elements. The virtual elements tag will be removed from the final HTML but it allows you to add special attributes where they are needed.

<virtual opt>
    [opt_name]
</virtual>

let opt_name = Some("John".to_string());
let html = template_html!("templates/virtual.html", opt_name);

On Yew side, this will be seen as:

let opt_name = Some("John".to_string());
let html = yew::html! {
   <>
      if let Some(opt_name) = opt_name { {opt_name} }
  </>
};

And Yew will produce the following HTML:

John

Notes

Litteral values are NOT escaped because they come from your code. Using a litteral value of value closed by quotes" trailing stuff will cause problems. This will be fixed in a future version. (Note that dynamic string values are always fine and are even escaped by Yew.)
You can use multiple top-level elements in your html template file.
While the crate is still experimental, it will be production-ready in a few weeks and will be maintained for the foreseeable future. It will also always support the latest version of Yew.

Macros

template_html

Reads a file and replaces the variables it contains with the supplied values. Produces a Yew html! macro invocation.