Sitecore Haml Rendering

Haml is a markup language used to generate XHTML. It was originally created as an alternate view engine for Ruby on Rails and has been ported to .net under the banner NHaml by Andrew Peters.

Haml uses space indentation to determine code blocks, which leads to being very easy to edit in a webform, as you don't need to worry about tab indentation and making sure you close your tags. Haml does it all for you.

Download

Sitecore Haml Rendering 1.0 (74.6k)
Haml Rendering 1.0 source (3,233k)

Install

The Haml rendering is distributed as a Sitecore package. Just download the package using the above link and install using the installation wizard in Sitecore.

Uninstall

To uninstall the Haml rendering just delete the following item from the master database:

Also, delete the following files:

Build

You can also build the Haml rendering yourself using the above 'source' link. The source is in C# and contains Visual Studio 2008 project and solution files. Just open the solution and build as normal.

The source file above also include a compiled version of NHaml in the 'lib' folder. You can use this library or pull down the latest NHaml source from Andrew's blog.

Usage

The Haml Rendering is registered in Sitecore as a Sitecore web control. To use a Haml rendering for your items presentation, after writing your Haml file and saving it on the file system, just include the Haml Rendering in the list of renderings for that item and set the 'Filename' parameter to the Haml file you wish to use.

Include Haml Rendering in Presentation

Include Haml Rendering in item's presentation

Haml Rendering settings

Settings for Haml Rendering

You can also set an optional 'CodeBeside' parameter which is a fully qualified type which will be included in your generated Haml template.

Example Haml

Below are 2 sample Haml files. The first will output information about the current item and it's children. The second will use the code beside to format some of the item's data.

NOTE: The below code uses 2 space characters to indent each level. This is a requirement for NHaml (although this is changing as you read this).

%h1= Sitecore.Context.Item.Name
.content
  %p= Sitecore.Context.Item["Text"]
.nav
  %p
    - foreach(Item i in Sitecore.Context.Item.GetChildren())
      %a{href=i.Paths.GetFriendlyUrl()}
        =i.Name
      %br

%p= Formatter.FormatDate(Sitecore.Content.Item["date"])

References

The following references might be useful in helping you get to know Haml

Andrew Peter's blog and home to NHaml
http://andrewpeters.net/
Launch of NHaml and basic tutorial
http://andrewpeters.net/2007/12/19/introducing-nhaml-an-aspnet-mvc-view-engine/
Haml website
http://haml.hamptoncatlin.com/
Haml tutorial
http://haml.hamptoncatlin.com/tutorial/
Haml documentation
http://haml.hamptoncatlin.com/docs/
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