browserify-compile-templates

Compiles underscore templates from HTML script tags into CommonJS in a browserify transform. You can add multiple script tags to each file. Requiring the file will return an object with a property for each script tag. The ID attribute is the key and the compiled template function as the value.

See the underscore documentation for more details.

Usage

Install

npm install --save-dev browserify-compile-templates

Create a template file

myTemplates.html

Use the id attribute to identify the template from your JS source. Use data-variable-name to change the variable name that is used in the underscore template. obj is the default

<script type="text/template" id="template1">
    <h2><%- obj.title %></h2>
</script> 
 
<script type="text/template" id="template2" data-variable-name="data">
    <li><%- data.name %> <<%- data.email %>></li>
</script> 

Transform options

Note: This will affect the compilation of all your templates!

Alternatively, if you do not want to scope your template values under a variable, provide the { noVar: true } option to the transform. If you do not want to require underscore library inside compiled script provide the the { globalUnderscore: true } option to the transform.

Require the template file

A JS file

var $ = require('jquery');
var templates = require('/path/to/myTemplates');
 
$('.container').html(templates.template1({ title: 'My Page Title' }));
$('.container').append(templates.template2({
    name: 'Rob',
    email 'rob@example.com'
}));

Add to browserify

Register the template and tell browserify to look for html extensions

browserify -t browserify-compile-templates --extension=.html

Why?

The advantage of this transform over other transforms or plugins is that the templates are backwards compatible with non-browserified code. Template files formatted this way can also be included directly in HTML. A UMD module that is shared in both a browserified and non-browserified codebase can be used like this:

(function (root, factory) {
    if (typeof module !== 'undefined') {
        // CommonJS - templates are precompiled and bundled in with JS
        var templates = require('/path/to/myTemplates');
        factory(
            module,
            templates.template1,
            templates.tempalte2
        );
    } else {
        // Borwser globals. Templates are included in html and need to be compiled client-side
        var $template1 = $('#template1');
        var $tempalte2 = $('#template2');
        factory(
            _module,
            _.template($template1.html(), null, {variable: $template.attr('data-variable-name')),
            _.template($template2.html(), null, {variable: $template.attr('data-variable-name'))
        );
    }
}(window || global, function (module, template1, template2) {
// Use compliled templates in here
}));

The commonJS environment gets the benefit of the precompiled template. Other environments can still include the file on the page and access it by ID.