Move view logic out of templates

[jnordberg]

There needs to be a better way to process the content tree before rendering it. Currently it has to be done in templates. This works well with templating languages like jade that support inline javascript, but for something like mustache you can only create very simple sites without creating a custom plugin.

I propose to introduce a new plugin type, a view plugin. The view takes over the responsibility of rendering from the content plugin. It will basically be the ContentPlugin's current render method.

Quick outline of the new structure:

• ContentPlugin
  loads and preprocesses content
  provides a 'view' property to tell ws what view to pass it to
• ViewPlugin
  called with a content plugin instance to render
  should call back with a read stream and a filename to write to
• TemplatePlugin
  helper plugin passed to the view plugin when rendering

A helper will load all js/coffeescript files in ./views as view plugins but you should also be able to register global view plugins.

And to provide backwards compatibility a default "template" view is available that just renders with the template defined by the content.

It would be great to get some input from you awesome people writing plugins for wintersmith: @smebberson @joefiorini @sfrdmn @mnmly @imothee @jnwng @lhagan @ajpiano @stephenallred @vitch (i hope i didn't miss anyone :)

[stephenallred]

Sounds good. I guess the view plugin's render method would have the same parameters as the render method on the content plugin currently?
How would the processed content be exposed to the templates?

Having to encode data processing logic like date ordering in templates has been the only negative I've had using Wintersmith (otherwise it's been brilliant, great work!).

[jnordberg]

Yeah, the processed content would be exposed to the templates by the view, the default view plugin could just be something like:

pageView = (plugin, locals, contents, templates, callback) ->
  template = templates[plugin.template]

  locals.page = plugin
  locals.contents = contents

  template.render locals, callback

[gmaclennan]

Would this allow a view plugin to be written to expose processed data in the content tree? If a template could access "pre-processed" data in the content tree, like in Jekyll, it would simplify template logic and lower the barrier for getting started with Wintersmith.

Would it be possible to develop a paginator with a pageView? Or would this need a different effort?

[jnordberg]

Boom