It’s nothing a little getting of my ass and testing wouldn’t tell me, but does this work for partials called form inside normal rhtml templates?

Yes, this works for partials.

Mmm I like the capture result.

self << @content_for_layout is definitely cute.

Not certain about table.editor.classic resulting in “editor classic”, something about that smells wrong, but I can’t think of an alternate method of doing this either.

What happens if you def a function anywhere in there? They just get added to that particular instance of a tr or whatever correct?

def helper content
  MarkupAsRuby.new do
    tr.name content
  end
end 

is necessary?

I still think auto-css integration would make this the most awesome of awesome though.

Brilliant!

I agree on the auto-css, Dgtized. I’m just trying to figure out if we have hook into the rcss templates or if we’ve got to do our own thing.

wow, this is soo similar to the html extension in cgi.rb, except this is side effectish.. :)

Right, the main differences between cgi.rb and Markaby are:

• Markaby uses instance_eval
  

  ul { li "item" }

  rather than

  cgi.ul { cgi.li "item" }

• Markaby uses Builder-style IO rather than string concatenation.
  

  ol { li "one"; li "two" }

  rather than

  cgi.ol { cgi.li("one") + cgi.li("two") }

Very cool stuff there _why & Tim. I just saw the .mab extensions added to edge rails in the svn commit mail list. And can confirm that it does work with edge rails.

I’m a little unclear on what you mean about the stylesheet_link_tag and “in default Markaby, helper methods are automatically output when called” Isn’t that what you want? i mean if you put the stylesheet_link_tag there in the head don’t you want it to output there? I guess i am missing something there.

But this looks very cool. Soon we won’t have to write any html or any sql. Using this and my where plugin it all comes together in pure ruby. Take a peek at this syntax extension I am working on for AR quries:

Model.find_with_conditons( :all, :limit => ..., :order => ... ) do 
  foo == 'bar'       # ["foo = ?", 'bar]
  baz <=> (1..100)   # ["baz BETWEEN ?AND ?", 1,100]
  woo =~ 'substri%'  # ["woo LIKE ?", 'substri%']
  id === (1..4)      # ["id IN (?)", [1,2,3,4]]
  fiz < 10           # lt, gt, leq, geq, etc., should all "just work" 
end

Ezra: Yes, most helper methods are designed for output, so it’s the default.

However, there are still a few problems. Like this:

 div do
   p(human_size(1234567))
 end

...doesn’t do what you’d expect. I don’t think most people want human_size or number_to_percentage to output directly.

One step closer to the unified Rubiverse where everyone speaks Ruby and Unicode is no longer needed. Yay!

Is this completely handled by RAILS ?

Meaning, do I need to define media types for .mab in Apache and Lighttpd?

No, Rails does it. You just run the script/plugin line above. You don’t actually see the .mab extension in the URLs. It’s just the extension used on files in app/views/ directory.

Is there anything special you have to do in order to make it work on Edge? The .mab files aren’t recognized here… (yes, I did svn up)

html do |:id => 'blah', :class => 'foo bar'|
  ...
end

Rapha: Make sure you don’t have similarly named .rhtml templates. An edit.rhtml will take precedence over edit.mab. I also don’t know if you can mix template types (an rhtml layout with a mab template.)

You can assign IDs and classes with the hash syntax:

 div :id => 'blah', :class => 'foo bar' do
   ...
 end

Identical to:

 div.blah!.foo.bar do
  ...
 end

kxzlfksaldk

Why: Thanks for explaining the syntax for id’s! I tried making a new `Test’ application and removed all RHTML files. Doesn’t work. When the plugin is installed, it works.

Btw., the above command (script/plugin install http://code.whytheluckystiff.net/svn/markaby/trunk) doesn’t appear to work. As a matter of fact, checking out markaby/trunk doesn’t work (please do tell if it’s my fault!). For the time being, I had to

cd vendor/plugins
svn co http://code.whytheluckystiff.net/svn/markaby
mv markaby/trunk/* markaby
rm -rf markaby/{branches,tags}

Trying to use Markaby here in my main application here now and have to say it rocks! The only thing that I see could use improvement is the form tag. Would it be possible to give it the same defaults as Rails’ form_tag(), i.e. action=”/controller/action” and method=”post”? Apart from that, it really does make your templates look much nicer than before. Thanks a lot for it!

_why: This is great! I’ve been looking for a slightly more programmatic template language for a while. I understand that it cuts out some of your average designers, but for me on my own it’s ok for now!

The only issue I’ve found is that the opening ‘head’ tag is missing in output. I have a head block, and the closing head tag is present at the right spot, but the opening tag is missing. I’ll see if I can find the problem here…

Also note that combining template types seems to work, at least for the mab as layout, rhtml as template scenario. The only thing you can’t do is pass the @content_for_layout variable as the parameter for a tag, since that’ll convert all the lt/gt signs in your html to their respective entities (among other things).

Well, the opening head tag is actually there, but hidden after my stylesheet/javascript tags. Since the helpers are outputting right away, they seem to get printed before the opening tag of the enclosing block. Are you able to duplicate this on your side, _why?

Markaby is great, thank you Tim and why!

I would really love to use it everywhere in my views/, but this is difficult. The problem with nested helper methods outputting everything twice is really annoying…especially frequently used idoms like <%= h pluralize( users.size, 'user' ) %> online are hard to translate correctly into Markaby. I wrote an article with a possible solution to the capture problem (excuse the poor layout, this is under construction.)

Basically, I think Markaby needs to be less surprising; I still haven’t figured out why some strange errors occur, so I suggest to minimize the magic behind it. For example, it seems to html_escape arguments when tag methods are called without block…useful, but not always wanted.

Is it possible to report better error messages? Markaby templates with errors are hard still to debug.

About combining Markaby an RHTML : I use a Markaby view with an RHTML partial, and it works perfectly.

how do you output helpers if you turn them off?

How can I install Markaby on my own stand-alone machine without Internet. Thank you very much for your help. ncv

cyx: either return them (a string) from a block like so:

div do
   link_to 'list', :action => :list
 end

or pass them as the first argument to a tag i.e.

p pluralize(things.size, 'thing')

Has anybody experience with Markaby performance compared to the Erb?

This could be a boost to having less html to hand code and more cool ruby code

murphy – just read ure doc and it’s got my vote, – it makes sense.

i find the the capture method is a little unintuitive.

Possibly the first Markaby-powered site in the wild…Ruby on Rails Workshops.

Uses Markaby mostly, but has a few rhtml partials.

I had success with using ’@output_helpers = false’ on the last partial in the tree, and using capture {} otherwise.

Very sweet! I really like this programmatic style of generating HTML .

One suggestion: I find the code to be more readable with {} instead of do/end. The do/end blends in with the HTML tag names, while {} helps the tags stand out more.

For example:

html do
  head do
    title action_name
    stylesheet_link_tag 'scaffold'
  end

  body do
    p flash[:notice], :style => "color: green" 
    self << @content_for_layout
  end
end

vs.

html {
  head {
    title action_name
    stylesheet_link_tag 'scaffold'
  }

  body {
    p flash[:notice], :style => "color: green" 
    self << @content_for_layout
  }
}

Okay, so let’s get this resolved. You guys are using @output_helpers = false only because of stuff that you’re sending to h, right?

murphy, doesn’t the following work?

 h1 'Runes in DB'

 for rune in @runes
   div.rune do
     render :partial => 'rune', :object => rune
     pluralize(rune.elements.size, 'rune')
   end
 end

 p do
   pluralize(@runes.size, 'rune') + ' found.'
 end

The capture method should only be used if you want to do a tricky loop, like the menu generation snippet in the post way up tippy top. It should be rare or never.

The bug with head is fixed.

I’m also trying out scanning for helpers which are used as arguments.

So this works now:

 div.rune do
   render :partial => 'rune', :object => rune
   h pluralize(rune.elements.size, 'rune')
 end

However, this doesn’t:

 h1 'Listing ' + pluralize(rune.elements.size, 'rune')

So I think argument matching will only complicate things.

I wish there were a way to tell between helpers which output strings containing formatted HTML and helpers which output plain strings. The format should be output (link_to, start_form_tag) whereas the latter should be held for questioning.

Okay, so let’s get this resolved.

I hope you don’t see my article as rant or something ;) but Markaby is so cool that it needs critic. I want it to be a success.

murphy, doesn’t the following work? ...

Not perfect. It doesn’t html_escape (not a real problem) but it also swallows the 'found'. It feels a bit like narrowing my possibilities – it’s complicated to use h here, so I omit it and hope XSS doesn’t bite me. ;) We all are lazy, ain’t we?

You guys are using @output_helpers = false only because of stuff that you’re sending to h, right?

It’s not that there are no other solutions, without switching @output_helpers off. But my intent is to make Markaby more simple, and less surprising. It does a lot behind the scenes to be shorter, and I see that my Markaby style can lead to longer templates. But I think it is easier to understand and handle for Nookabys.

I’m always struggling with languages that tend to be too short – YAML , Textile and Markaby all have this fresh new beautiful look of shortness – but then, you find new exceptions on the other side. It seems to be a consequence: Whenever you try to make something shorter, you have exceptions which make it complex. Try Perl. If you are an experienced user, you are productive with it. If you are new, you’re lost.

Ruby is short, but tries hard to avoid these problems. Rails also does, in my opinion. And if we want to target on those users, we should make Markaby extremely simple to learn an maintain, even if we give up some neat shortcuts. Not everything. I love div.class do.

The capture method should only be used if you want to do a tricky loop, like the menu generation snippet in the post way up tippy top. It should be rare or never.

Oh, I got that wrong. Then we all agree it should not be frequently used :)

What about adding out as an alias for self << ?

If it helps… I’m a noob and like “self << ” better then “out”. Actually, it’s quite neat. But then, I’m a noob :-)

Right now text is an alias for <<, but I think out is preferrable. I will change it!

I agree that @output_helpers is easier to understand, but having to do:

 ul do
   li { out(link_to 'RH', 'http://redhanded.hobix.com') }
 end

Seems too verbose.

Another maybe-too-tricky thing… What if we have a version of h which turns off @output_helpers and escapes output?

 div.rune do
   render :partial => 'rune', :object => rune
   h { pluralize(rune.elements.size, 'rune') }
 end

@Rapha: thanks, I shouldn’t think I knew what noobs like. Original noob comments are certanly more helpful than me trying to guess what noobs think or like – in fact, it’s me who likes it better. We should make a noob election for every new feature for more democracy. Sorry.

Right now text is an alias for <<

Oh, I didn’t know text. This is also a good name. Is there a Markaby docu yet? Or some guide with cartoon foxes?

Mmh…what about

ul do
  li(link_to 'RH', 'http://redhanded.hobix.com')
 end

This could be used if you turn automatic html_escaping off. Stack this:

ul li link_to 'RH', 'http://redhanded.hobix.com'

Now we have both … out and self << ... :-) Isn’t that worth a celebration? Let the Champaign flow!

Why, what about my earlier point of having the same defaults as the “old” Rails methods do? Like, form defaulting to <form action="post"> and so on?

Btw, am I the only one who sees the comic foxes analogically to Monthy Python movies? (Read: incomprehensible to a certain breed of people—nothing against Why ;-) )

The preview button shows < and > as < and > when they’re enclosed by code tags, whereas the submitted comments do not. Just something I noticed…

Not sure, have I found a bug here?

list.mab:

odd_or_even = 0
for thing in @things
  odd_or_even = 1 - odd_or_even
  self << thing.inspect
  render :partial => 'item', 
         :object => thing, 
         :locals => { 
           :odd_or_even => odd_or_even 
        }
end

item.mab:

  self << thing.inspect

output of first thing.inspect:

#nil, 
"created_on"=>"2006-01-13 01:34:08", 
"name"=>"Test",
"id"=>"2",}>

output of second thing.inspect:

["", "\n"]

This is just code that I translated from RHTML . In RTHML it works.

Rapha: You were right no local assignments were being merged. Please update your plugins. Thankyou!

”.. there’s not much more to this at present. For example, RedCloth support isn’t built in”

What are your thoughts on putting Redcloth in ? Or would it ruin the rubiness of all ?

Thanks Why! Just tried it out and it’s working perfectly now.

Still no comment on my sensible defaults for attributes-request though? :)

Very nice plugin! It’s possible to include attributes from a helper function?

<td <%= some_function() -%> > 

Just discovered that you don’t have to delete the .rhtml files to get the .mabs running. Rails prefers additional template handlers over the standard ones, see ActionView::Base#pick_template_extension.

Markaby is in Gems for general use now:

 gem install markaby

Hrm, well, for now:

 gem install markaby --source http://code.whytheluckystiff.net/

Alciato: yes you can, e.g.

helper:

def stylesheet_link_attrs
   { :rel => "stylesheet", :type => "text/css" }
 end

markaby:

link stylesheet_link_attrs

result:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>

Thank you, tim. I notice also that the select function conflicts with the Markaby select tag. When i use the select method as usual markaby tries to render as a tag and throws the following error `select’: can’t convert Hash into time interval

This works

module ActionView::Helpers::FormOptionsHelper
alias  select_mab select
end

and use select_mab in the views

...any alternative?

Alternative would be to remove :select from lib/markaby/tags.rb – depends how often you use the two.

The gem works now – thank you.

OK, Wheres the nooby users manual?

This is what Builder for HTML should be!

I’ve finally realized why I find this plugin so downright luscious. It decimates the shift-count of writing markup!

Looking at your first example (and substituting ’ for “) I find 9 shifts necessary, all but 1 of which involve inescapable ’_’ and ’:’ characters. I count 28 in the equivalent ERB markup (this all assumes more efficient use of the shift key than I normally make in my typing).

(The royal) we the anti-shift-while-typing-code community salute you! Were it not for my previous sentence, I would seriously be considering swapping – and _ on my keyboard.

I’m very new to ruby. I like Markaby.

I’m trying to get the select tag to work in a form. Apparently I haven’t a clue (based on all the errors I get back from Markaby). Could someone please give an example of how to use the select tag and options? I can do this in RoR with actionview but I like Markaby better

Markby = less LISP (lots of Insidious Silly Parenthesis (or Braces, anglebrackets) for me to track.

thanks

thabks

The select element gets in a fight with a select function somewhere. Just use tag! ‘select’ instead for now…

Broken for Rails 1.1 RC1 ?

Should work now (revision 33)