README.md

Pattern Man

A middleman extension that implements Pattern Lab-style patterns.

Installation

You'll need to install this gem first.

• put gem install 'middleman-patterns' in the Gemfile of your middleman project
• run bundle install
• add activate :patterns to your config.rb file outside the configure :build block

You're up and running! This gem supports whatever templating engines middleman supports, but you do need to put the template files for patterns where this extension can find them. The expected default directory structure looks like the following (filenames are examples):

source/
  patterns/
    templates/
      user-information.html.erb
    organisms/
      address-input.html.erb
    molecules/
      labeled-input.html.erb
    atoms/
      button.html.erb

Using Patterns

Put some HTML in your patterns:

# patterns/molecules/labeled-input.html.erb
---
input_class: 'input'
---

<div class="<%=input_class%>">
  <label for="<%=input_id%>">
    <%= label_text %>
  </label>
  <%= atom 'input' %>
</div>

# patterns/atoms/input.html.erb
---
input_type: text
---
<input type="<%= input_type %>" <% if input_id %> id="<%= input_id %>" <% end %>>

Then use the appropriate helper method in your middleman view:

# source/index.html.erb

<div class="welcome">
  <%= molecule 'labeled-input', input_id: 'some_input', label_text: "Fill me out!" %>
</div>

And your output will be:

<div class="welcome">
  <div class="input">
    <label for="some_input">
      Fill me out!
    </label>
    <input type="text"  id="some_input">
  </div>
</div>

Config options

You can customize the patterns directory by passing patterns_directory: 'other_directory' when activating the extension.

By default, this extension ignores everything in the patterns directory when building the site, so you don't end up with pages with URLs like /patterns/atoms/button.html. You can override this so that the site does build these pages if you want, by passing the build_patterns option.

activate :patterns, build_patterns: true