Rendering Content

First of all, set up the views directory -

appExpress.views('views');

Using static resources

1. Serve static HTMLs:

// make sure to add correct content-types.
appExpress.get('/', (request, response) => response.binary('index.html'));

2. Serve HTML from string:

const htmlString = '...';
appExpress.get('/', (request, response) => response.text(htmlString, 200, 'text/html'));

Using View Engines

1. After setting up the views directory, add a view engine - Note: Supported out of the box engines are hbs, ejs, pug.

import ejs from 'ejs';
import pug from 'pug';
import hbs from 'express-hbs';

appExpress.engine('ejs', ejs);
appExpress.engine('pug', pug);
appExpress.engine('hbs', hbs.express4());

2. Rendering content -

res.render('index', { title: 'AppExpress' });

Note: If you have multiple engines registered, make sure to use the file name with extension like -

res.render('index.ejs', { title: 'AppExpress' });

Custom View Engines

You can register custom view engines too.

1. First register the render logic, example -

   appExpress.engine('md', (filePath, options, callback) => {
     fs.readFile(filePath, (error, content) => {
       if (error) return callback(error);
       let rendered = content
         .toString()
         .replace(/%([^%]+)%/g, (match, key) => {
           return (
             key
             .split('.')
             .reduce((acc, k) => acc && acc[k], options) || match
           );
         });
   
       rendered = showdownConverter().makeHtml(rendered);
   
       return callback(null, rendered);
     });
   });    

2. Render it as previous -

   res.render('index.md', { title: 'AppExpress' });