Choose a dotnet HTML templating library (other than DotLiquid?)

[srid]

DotLiquid (current choice) doesn't work well with arbitrary JSON input, and seems to require fiddling with advanced non-F# language features like ExpandoObject.

dotliquid/dotliquid#299 (comment)

decision matrix

	virtual fs	layouts	JSON input
DotLiquid	🆗	🆗	⚠️ #1 (comment)
Scriban		❔ Differently scriban/scriban#52 (comment)
fluid	🆗	🆗 sebastienros/fluid#291	🆗 sebastienros/fluid#290

legend:

• virtual fs: continue supporting virtual filesystem of templates
• layouts: layout extend, or includes
• JSON input: allow passing arbitrary JSON to templates without having to define F# types

[srid]

fluid's author comments about DotLiquid here,

Initially I tried to use dotLiquid but was faced with performance issues as it is using regular expressions to parse the templates.

[srid]

JSON input is technically possible with DotLiquid, but it takes a lot of code: dotliquid/dotliquid#223 (comment) and dotliquid/dotliquid#299 (comment) - but it doesn't work reliably dotliquid/dotliquid#417

[srid]

I should try sebastienros/fluid#292 on Monday.

[srid]

FTR fluid requires the following to enable Json support, but it doesn't work in new master, and might need fixing:

        let enableJson(opts: TemplateOptions) =
            opts.MemberAccessStrategy.Register<JObject, JToken>(
                System.Func<JObject, string, JToken>(fun src name -> src.GetValue(name))
            )
            opts.ValueConverters.Add(fun x -> 
                match x with 
                | :? JObject as o ->
                    x
                | _ -> null)
            opts.ValueConverters.Add(fun x -> 
                match x with 
                | :? JValue as v ->
                    v.Value
                | _ -> null)

The JSON criteria has become much less important right now (because type-safety is a good thing in template variables) though, so I'll go ahead without working JSON support. The switch to fluid is good anyway due to performance benefits and active development.