5.2 KiB
Installation
Trying out Marko
If you just want to play around with Marko in the browser, head on over to our Try Online feature. You'll be able to develop a Marko application right in your browser.
Creating new apps
If you're starting from scratch, marko-cli provides a starter app to
get you going quickly. To get started:
npm install marko-cli --global
marko create hello-world
cd hello-world
npm install # or yarn
npm start
Direct usage
Installing
The Marko compiler runs on Node.js and can be installed using npm:
npm install marko --save
or using yarn:
yarn add marko
In the browser
Let's say we have a simple view that we want to render in the browser: hello.marko
hello.marko
<h1>Hello ${input.name}</h1>
First, let's create a client.js that requires the view and renders it to the body:
client.js
var helloComponent = require('./hello');
helloComponent.renderSync({ name:'Marko' })
.appendTo(document.body);
We will also create a barebones HTML page to host our application:
index.html
<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Marko Example</title>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>
Now, we need to bundle these files for use in the browser. We can use a tool called lasso to do that for us, so let's get it (and the marko plugin) installed:
npm install --global lasso-cli
npm install --save lasso-marko
Now we can build our bundle for the browser:
lasso --main client.js --plugins lasso-marko --inject-into index.html
This builds a client.js file to the newly created static/ directory and injects the required <script> tags into our HTML page to load our application in the browser. If we had css in the view then <link> tags would have also been added.
Load up that page in your browser and you should see Hello Marko staring back at you.
On the server
Require Marko views
Marko provides a custom Node.js require extension that allows you to require Marko views exactly like a standard JavaScript module. Take the following example server.js:
hello.marko
<div>
Hello ${input.name}!
</div>
server.js
// The following line installs the Node.js require extension
// for `.marko` files. This should be called once near the start
// of your application before requiring any `*.marko` files.
require('marko/node-require');
var fs = require('fs');
// Load a Marko view by requiring a .marko file:
var hello = require('./hello');
var out = fs.createWriteStream('hello.html', { encoding: 'utf8' });
hello.render({ name: 'Frank' }, out);
Using the Node.js require extension is completely optional. If you prefer to not use the Node.js require extension then you will need to precompile all of the marko templates using Marko CLI:
marko compile hello.marko
This will produce a hello.marko.js file next to the original template. The generated .js file will be what gets loaded by the Node.js runtime. It is important to leave off the .marko extension when requiring a Marko template so that the .js will be resolved correctly.
If you wish to only use the require extension in development, you can conditionally require it.
if (!process.env.NODE_ENV) {
require('marko/node-require');
}
Serving a simple page
Let's update server.js to serve the view from an http server:
server.js
// Allow requiring `.marko` files
require('marko/node-require');
var http = require('http');
var hello = require('./hello');
var port = 8080;
http.createServer((req, res) => {
// let the browser know html is coming
res.setHeader('content-type', 'text/html');
// render the output to the `res` output stream
hello.render({ name:'Marko' }, res);
}).listen(port);
And give hello.marko some content:
hello.marko
<h1>Hello ${input.name}</h1>
Start the server (node server.js) and open your browser to http://localhost:8080 where you should see the heading Hello Marko.
Initializing server-rendered components
Marko automatically injects a list of components that need to be mounted in the browser, right before the closing </body> tag (as such, it required that you include a <body> in your rendered output).
However, you still need to bundle the CSS & JavaScript for your page and include the proper link, style, and script tags. Luckily, the lasso taglib will do all the heavy lifting for you.
First install lasso and lasso-marko:
npm install --save lasso lasso-marko
Next, in your page or layout view, add the lasso-head and lasso-body tags:
layout.marko
<!doctype>
<html>
<head>
<title>Hello world</title>
<lasso-head/>
</head>
<body>
<include(input.body)/>
<lasso-body/>
</body>
</html>
Finally, configure your server to serve the static files that lasso generates:
server.js
app.use(require('lasso/middleware').serveStatic());