Razorblade

An extension to Laravel's Blade templating engine.

Instalation

Requirements

• PHP version >= 5.4

How to install

Install via Composer:

composer require impactwave/razorblade

Register the service provider

Open the config/app.php file included with Laravel, you will see a providers array.

Add the following string to that array:

'Impactwave\Razorblade\RazorbladeServiceProvider'

Blade Extensions

Besides providing some new Blade directives (see below), Razorblade also adds Custom Directives to Blade.

What are Custom Directives?

Creating a Blade syntax extension is not too difficult, but it's not very easy either. You'll have to deal with regular expressions and low-level implementation details. In practice, few people have the skills and patience to do it, so extensions are seldom used.

What if you could easily create your own syntactic extensions to Blade and make your templates more readable and easier to write?

Razorblade provides you with a simple and easy way to do it, called Custom Directives.

You just create a simple static method on a class of your choosing, with a specific call signature, and you can immediately call it from Blade.
Implementing the method itself to perform some useful work is also quite simple.

Razorblade provides you with some predefined custom directives on the Impactwave\Razorblade\Directives class. See the documentation for them further below.

Simple Custom Directives

The simplest kind of custom directive allows you to invoke a method and replace the custom directive call with the output from it.
The method can, optionally, receive one or more arguments from the template.

Syntax

@@[class::]method [(args)]

Note: [] brackets are not part of the syntax, they denote optional elements.

Generated pseudo-code

{{ class::method (args) }}

• Parenthesis are optional; ex: @@a::b instead of @@a::b().
• class is a fully qualified class name; ex: my\namespace\myClass or just myClass.
• If class is not specified, Impactwave\Razorblade\Directives is assumed.

Custom Directive implementation

The method implementing the custom directive should have the following signature:

static public function directiveName ($arg1, ...) {}

• $arg1, ... denotes a list of optional arguments. It may be completely ommited.
• The method should return a string. Alternatively, the output it generates may instead be sent to the normal PHP output buffer, either using echo or a markup block (?> ...markup... <?php).

Compile-time code generation

If a {$method}_compiler method exists, Razorblade will invoke it at compile-time to generate the compiled code for inclusion on the template, instead of generating code to call $method at runtime. This allows you to have complete control over the generated code.

The compiler method signature must be:

static public function directiveName_compiler ($arg1, ...) {}

Block Custom Directives

A custom directive, besides (optionally) having regular function-like arguments, can also process a full block of markup, like some of the predefined Blade constructs do (like, for instance, the @if (...args) ...markup... @endif construct does).

Syntax

@@[class::]method [(args)]:
  html markup
@@end[class::]method

Note: [] brackets are not part of the syntax, they denote optional elements.

• args it's a list of arguments and it's optional.
• Parenthesis are optional; ex: @@a::b instead of @@a::b().
• class is a fully qualified class name; ex: my\namespace\myClass or just myClass.
• If class is not specified, Impactwave\Razorblade\Directives is assumed.

Generated pseudo-code

{{ class::method (indentSpace,html,...args) }}

Custom Directive implementation

The method implementing the custom directive should have the following signature:

static public function directiveName ($indentSpace, $html, $arg1, ...) {}

• $arg1, ... denotes a list of optional arguments. It may be completely ommited.
• $indentSpace is a string comprised of white space, corresponding to the indentation level of the source markup block.
• $html is the markup block defined between the opening and the closing custom directive tag (@@tag ... @@endtag).
• The method should return a string. Alternatively, the output it generates may instead be sent to the normal PHP output buffer, either using echo or a markup block (?> ...markup... <?php).

Compile-time code generation

If a {$method}_compiler method exists, Razorblade will invoke it at compile-time to generate the compiled code for inclusion on the template, instead of generating code to call $method at runtime. This allows you to have complete control over the generated code.

The compiler method signature must be:

static public function directiveName_compiler ($indentSpace, $html, $arg1, ...) {}

Boolean attribute generation

A shorter and more readable syntax for generating boolean html attributes.

It outputs a valueless attribute if the argument is true, otherwise it suppresses the attribute completely, including any preceding white space.

Syntax

attribute="@boolAttr (expression)"

Output

Ex: <option selected> if true, or <option> if false.

Generated pseudo-code

<?php echo $expression ? '$precedentSpace$attrName' : '' ?>

• Parenthesis are optional; ex: @attr a::b instead of @attr a::b()

Predefined Custom Directives

@@field

Generates a Bootstrap-compatible form field with automatic data-binding and error display

The generated field has several features that significantly simplify your markup, making it shorter and more readable, and saving you from typing repetitive boilerplace markup and Blade directives.

The form field will:

• automatically display the current value from the view's model.
• automatically have an associated label, if one is specified on the custom directive call.
  The label is bound to the field, so that it is accessibility-enabled and when the uses clicks the label, the field becames focused.

In case of a form validation error upon submission, the custom directive generates a form field that:

• displays the value that was submitted;
• replaces mentions to the field name by the corresponding field label;
• replaces mentions to a related field name by the corresponding field label (ex. for a 'Confirm password' field);
• if the field's value is invalid:
  • sets the field CSS class to an error class, so that the field is marked as invalid;
  • displays a validation error message;

You can also specify which IDs and CSS classes to apply to several elements on the generated markup.

The custom directive should wrap an arbitrary form field, which you should specify in plain HTML.

Do not specify the name or value attributes on the form field's tag. They will be filled in by the custom directive based on its arguments.

Blade syntax

@@field (name, label, options)
  <input type="any-type-you-want" any-attr-you-want> or
  <textarea></textarea> or
  <select></select>
@@endfield

PHP call syntax

Directives::field ('', '<input type="text">', 'name', 'Your name', ['id'=>'idField'])

• name: the field name. For array fields (ex: select multiple), append [] to the field name.

• label: if ommited, no label will be generated. If it's empty, an empty label will be output.

• options: an array that may specify:

  array key	meaning
  id	iI this is ommited, an id="input-fieldName" attribute is generated. If it's empty, no id attribute will be output.
  related	The field name of a related field (ex. password confirmation field) for field name translation.
  relatedLabel	The related field's human-friendly name.
  noLabel	true to hide the label, allowing you to still set its name.
  outerClass	CSS class to apply to the outer div. Default: 'form-group'.
  innerClass	CSS class to apply to the inner div, which wraps the input(s). Degault: 'controls'.
  lblClass	CSS class to apply to the input's label. Default: 'control-label'.
  outerId	Id to apply to the outer div.
  innerId	Id to apply to the inner div.
  model	Field name path prefix, for retrieving values from nested arrays (ex: 'auth.user.name'). Default: ''

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@@token

Generates a CSRF token

Outputs a hidden form field with a CSRF token for use by Laravel's CSRF middleware.

Syntax

@@token

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@@includePublic

Includes public files

Unlinke Blade's @include, which includes templates from the view directory, this directive includes a file from a location inside the public web directory.
This is similar to an Apache server-side include. It can be useful for a designer while developing a user interface mockup. The file can be a static HTML page or it can be a dynamic PHP file, but not a template.

Syntax

@@includePublic ('relative/path/to/file.html')

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@@includeStatic

Includes a static (or client-side) template

Inserts a template read from a location inside the views directory, directly into the current Blade template, without any further processing (i.e. the template is inserted exactly as it was read, without any dynamic execution).

Syntax

@@includeStatic (path)

• path: the template's file path, relative to the views directory.

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@@clientSideTemplate

Embeds a client-side template

This custom directive is quite useful for embedding client-side templates on the generated page. You can do it like this:

Syntax

@@clientSideTemplate (id, path, type = 'text/template')

• id: the javascript template ID.
• path : the template's file path, relative to the views directory.
• type [optional]: the type attribute for the generated script tag. Defaults to 'text/template'.

Generated pseudo-code

<script id="myTemplate" type="text/template">
  ...template markup...
</script>

In this example, client-side templates would be placed inside the views/client-side directory, right next to the other server-side templates.

The advantage of this kind of template embedding is that templates will be already available when the page loads, and further XHR requests will not be required to load the client-side templates.

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@@validationErrors

Displays form validation errors

Generates a Bootstrap-compatible alert box that displays an alert title and text, followed by all error messages that resulted from the last form validation.

Syntax

@@validationErrors (type = 'info')

• type: The error type: error|info|success|warning. Defaults to info.

Requirements

You must define the following localization keys:

Key	Meaning
auth.PROBLEMS 1	The alert box title.
auth.PROBLEMS	An explanation message.

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@@flashMessage

Displays a flash message

Displays a flash message that was set on the previous request.

Syntax

@@flashMessage

A flash message is stored on the Session's message key with the format: 'type|message|title'.

• type: The error type: error|info|success|warning. Defaults to warning.
• message: the message.
• type: an optional title.

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@@toastrMessage

Displays a Toastr message

Displays a popup flash message using the Toastr javascript plugin.

Syntax

@@toastrMessage

See @@flashMessage for more information.

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@@php

Embeds PHP code inline

Allows the inclusion of a block of PHP code inside a blade template without using <?php ?> tags.

It is required if you want to embed PHP code on Blade templates that use Razorblade block custom directives.

Warning: if you use <?php ?> tags on Blade templates, block custom directives will not be compiled, as inlined PHP blocks split template compilation into separate fragments, which will interfere with the compilation logic.

Syntax

@@php:
  $v = "my PHP code";
  // etc...
@@endphp

The Form utility class

The Impactwave\Razorblade\Form class provides several static utility methods that are best used in conjunction with the predefined Razorblade custom directives.

Form::flash

Allows sending flash messages to be viewed on the next request. It has support for 4 types of messages and allows setting an optional title.

Hint: use the @@flashMessage or @@toastrMessage custom directives for displaying the message.

Syntax

flash ($message, $title = '', $type = Form::ALERT_INFO)

• string $message: The message to be displayed.
• string $title: An optional title for the alert box.
• string $type: The alert type: error|info|success|warning. You can also use one of the Form::ALERT_xxx constants.

Form::fieldIs

Checks if the field's currently submitted value matches the given value.

If the field's value is an array (being the field name suffixed by []), this will match the reference value against all array values (for instance, in the case of multiple radio buttons for the same field, or for a multi-select dropdown).

Syntax

Form::fieldIs ($field, $value)

• string $field: Field name.
• string $value: Field value to match.

Form::fieldWas

Checks if the field's previously submitted value matches the given value.

If the field's value was an array (being the field name suffixed by []), this will match the reference value against all array values (for instance, in the case of multiple radio buttons for the same field, or for a multi-select dropdown).

Syntax

Form::fieldWas ($field, $value)

• string $field: Field name.
• string $value: Field value to match.

Form::setModel

Sets the data to be initially displayed on a form, before the form is submitted for the first time.

Use this in conjunction with the @@field custom directives and Form::validate().

Syntax

Form::setModel ($model)

• array $model: The form data, as a map of field names to field values.

Form::validate

Shortcut method for form data validation.

If validates the form input and, if it fails:

• flashes an error message;
• generates a redirection to the same URL;
• saves on the session the validation error messages and the submitted form values, so that they can be redisplayed on the next request.

Hint: use this in conjunction with @@field custom directives to easily create a form with validation.

Usage

Place the validate call on the controller method that handles the POST request.

$err = Util::validate([
  'password'  => 'required|min:8',
  'password2' => 'required|same:password',
  etc...
]);
if ($err) return $err;
// continue handling the form

• array $rules: A map of field names to validation rules.
• array $messages: [optional] Custom error messages. See the Laravel documentation for the Validator class.
• array $customAttributes: [optional] Custom attributes. See the Laravel documentation for the Validator class.
• Returns: false|\Illuminate\Http\RedirectResponse - false if the form validates successfully, otherwise, a redirection response.

Requirements

You must define the following localization keys:

Key	Meaning
app.formValidationFailed	A generic message explaining that the form could not be submitted. Details can be found next to each invalid field.

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License

The MIT license. See the accompanying LICENSE file.

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Copyright © 2016 Cláudio Silva and Impactwave, Lda