svg.wiml.js

This is a plugin for the svg.js library adding the wiml markup language to the text element.

Svg.wiml.js is licensed under the terms of the MIT License.

Introduction

The WIML markup language tries to ease the pain of manually building styled text by providing a more comprehensible and concise syntax. Additionally it provides support for interpolation with variables and conditions on fragments of content. It is loosely inspired on the textile syntax.

Usage

Include this plugin after including the svg.js library in your html document.

Markup

To be able to use the WIML markup language you need to know how text elements are structured in SVG. Basically text elements can contain text nodes or tspan elements.

Just some %{fill:#f06}styled% text

Note that you will always have to open and close nodes. Opening the tspan will be done by the first % and closing again by the second %.

Adding tspans

In its easiest form, a text element contains just a plain text node:

<text>Just some plain text</text>

The WIML equivalent would be:

Just some plain text

Parts of the text content can be wrapped in tspans:

<text>Just some <tspan fill="#f06">styled</tspan> text</text>

The WIML equivalent would be:

Just some %{fill:#f06}styled% text

Basically every existing SVG attribute can be passed on there, not unlike CSS:

Just some %{fill:#f06;stroke-opacity:0;dy:-40}styled% text

Generating elements

Generating text elements with WIML markup is much like generating regular text elements. By far the easiest way is to call the wiml() method on the parent element:

draw.wiml('Just some %{fill:#f06}styled% text') // returns a text element

This will generate a text element with the desired markup.

Another way is to call the wiml() method on an existing text element:

var text = draw.text('Plain text')
var wiml = text.wiml('Just some %{fill:#f06}styled% text') // returns an instance of SVG.WIML

Variables

Now this is where it starts getting interesting. WIML provides functionality for inline variables which are interpolated with a javascript object. In the WIML syntax variables are defined with a = symbol:

Just some %=description% text

In practice this would work as follows:

draw.wiml('Just some %=description% text', { description: 'fabulous' })

Of course styling can be added to the varibale section as well:

draw.wiml('Just some %{fill:#f06}=description% text', { description: 'fabulous' })
// => Just some <span fill="#ff0066">fabulous</span> text

Conditional text fragments

To go a step further, conditions on the presence of variables can be added to WIML instances.

As an example, if the description value has been provide that part will be rendered:

draw.wiml('Just %{if:description}some% %=description% text', { description: 'fabulous' })
// => Just some fabulous text

But if it is not provided it won't render:

draw.wiml('Just %{if:description}some% %=description% text', { house: 'mastaba' })
// => Just text

This also works for the requirement of muliple variables:

draw.wiml('Just %{if:description+content}some% %=description% %=content% content!', { description: 'fabulous', content: 'text' })
// => Just some fabulous text content!

If just one variable is not present, "some" won't be rendered:

draw.wiml('Just %{if:description+content}some% %=description% %=content% content!', { description: 'fabulous' })
// => Just fabulous content!

By separating the required variables with a +, they will all be required.

And this also works in the other direction when variabels are separated by a ,:

draw.wiml('Just %{if:description,content}some% %=description% %=content% content!', { description: 'fabulous' })
// => Just some fabulous content!

To conclude, if:description+content requires all variables to be present, if:description,content requires just one variable to be present to add the encapsulated content.

Of course there also is the opposite situation where some content should not be rendered if certain values are present. In that case unless should be used instead of if:

draw.wiml('Just %{unless:description}some% %=description% text', { description: 'fabulous' })
// => Just fabulous text

As you might expect this works exacly like if with multiple conditions, but in the opposite direction:

draw.wiml('Just %{unless:description+content}some% %=description% %=content% content!', { description: 'fabulous', content: 'text' })
// => Just fabulous text content!

Finally, there might be cases where some values are required and some are not. In that case, the ! operator can be used before the variable name:

draw.wiml('Just %{if:description+!content}some% %=description% %=content% content!', { description: 'fabulous', content: 'text' })
// => Just fabulous content!

Important

Nested tspans

With the current syntax nested tspans are not possible.

Using % inside a WIML tspan

Can be done by wrapping the % sign inside the WIML tspan:

I am %{fill:#f06}about 100%%% sure% it will work.