Bramble MVC Example Blog

This repository contains a project that uses Bramble MVC to generate a static multi-user blog site. To build the site, use npm install and then node build.

Structure

View files are located in lib/view. Markdown files containing markdown are stored in lib/posts. Code for reading the blog posts from the file system live in \lib\data. The main entry point for building the website is in build.js.

Routes

build.js defines various routes map urls to application logic. Here are few lines taken from build.js:

bramble.get('/blog/author/:name', function(req, res) {
    res.view("blogpage", {
        posts: blogRepository.getPostsByAuthor(req.parameters.name)
    });
});

bramble.get('/blog/post/:postName', function(req, res) {
    res.view("post", {
        post: blogRepository.getPost(req.parameters.postName)
    });
});

bramble.get('/more-info', function(req, res) {
    res.view("moreinfo");
});

bramble.redirect('/', '/blog/page');

bramble.build(viewPath, outputDirectory, brambleBuildComplete);

Using the get method, handlers can be associated with urls and allow you to execute code prior to rendering a view. You can retrieve data from any source you like and pass it into a view for rendering. The final line tells Bramble MVC to build the site and export it to the specified output directory.

Views

The rendering engine is customizable but Bramble MVC uses Nunjucks by default. Here is an excerpt from the view that renders a list of blog posts:

{% for post in posts %}

<article>
    <a href="{{ url('/blog/post/' + post.uniqueName) }}">
        <h2>{{ post.title }}</h2>
    </a>
    <section class='post-info'>
        <a href="{{ url('/blog/author/' + post.author) }}">{{ post.author }}</a>
        <time dateTime="{{ post.publishedISO8601 }}">{{ post.publishedFormatted }}</time>
        <p>{{ post.preview }}</p>
    </section>
</article>

{% endfor %}

You get access to any properties you pass to the view from the route handler. Additionally, you get access to the url method. This tells what url Bramble MVC should render next. This is what makes Bramble MVC flexible. You can see that in the above example that linking to a blog file will automatically cause the author page and post page to be rendered as well - there is no configuration required, things are generated on demand!