Malline - a template system for Ruby on Rails

RubyGem for version 1.0.2

New stable version 1.0.2 is released introducing gem package. See Installation for more info.

2008-04-01

Bugfix release 1.0.1

New stable version 1.0.1 is released, see ChangeLog about changes.

2008-03-31

Project management

Finally we have a bug tracking system.

2008-03-31

Something's wrong with the Ruby on Rails. It's the ugly ERB templating system and all these horrible spaghettish PHP-like .rhtml -files that have brought you here. The very existence of ASP, PHP and JSP should tell you about the rationality of the idea of embedding a programming language inside a HTML file with tragicomical delimiters.

However, I offer you a solution. I give you Malline, a full-featured template system designed for Rails. It does it's share in the MVC-framework with a beautiful simplicity.

All template files written for it are just pure Ruby. No Embedded Ruby, nor any new template language, just pure Ruby.

A simple usage example

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div.page do
    h1 'Header one'
    ul.list! do
        li { a 'Link to somewhere', :href => '/foo' }
    end
end

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<div class="page">
    <h1>Header one</h1>
    <ul id="list">
        <li>
            <a href="/foo">Link to somewhere</a>
        </li>
    </ul>
</div>

More examples on features-page »

Comments

Status report
by Riku, 2 months ago

Malline is currently actively maintained, that is, I will fix any bugs as soon as possible. There haven't been any non-bugfix commits to svn since October, so I think it would be fair to say that development has been in freeze.

Why is that and what does it mean?
The current (trunk) version is working and usable, so there haven't been any great urge to push new features or optimize/refactor the code. However, it doesn't mean that the project is dead.

Now when the first version has been around a while, it has received positive feedback and I'm now sure that the project isn't totally insane. That means that I really should now unfreeze the development: set up a Trac or alternative SCM for feature/bug tracking and community support, add next milestones and suggest new features, and then start implementing then.

Would Trac be good? I don't really like any of those Google Project Hosting or similar services, I would prefer to host my own.

And is the mailing list the way to go? There maybe could be better solutions?

by Curtis, 2 months ago

Can you give us an update on the status of Malline? Is it still being actively developed? Will you be setting up a mailing list and bug tracking so that the community can get involved with the development?

Having looked at Malline, HAML, Markaby, and double-x (xx), I think Malline has the best syntax and the greatest potential for DRYing up markup. I think you have the start of something really good here, but the apparent lack of community support is troubling.

by jim, 6 months ago

Ah...I see that it was patterned after Markaby after looking at your alternatives page.

by jim, 6 months ago

This is not the same as HAML, but it is the same as Markaby.

by Riku, 7 months ago

Yes, HAML is listed on the alternatives-page, but it really doesn't have the same syntax. Malline is pure Ruby when HAML is a different language. HAML and Malline both solve the same problem, yes, but in totally different ways.

by Sava Chankov, 7 months ago

Haven't you heard of HAML (http://haml.hamptoncatlin.com/)? It has exactly the same syntax as Malline.

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