The Engineering blog

diecutter.io reads templates on Github!

Fri 19 July 2013 By Benoît Bryon • Tags: diecutter service templates

We have just released diecutter 0.5, which introduces support of remote templates. Let's explain why it does matter...

Remote templates

Support of remote templates is the major feature of the 0.5 release.

Note

Keep in mind that the current "remote templates" implementation is experimental. It is quite slow and greedy. The scope of this 0.5 release was to publish a proof of concept. We are planning some improvements related to performance and scalability in next releases.

That said, let's give it a try!

Given:

We can use diecutter.io to render the template:

$ curl -X POST --data name=Novapost http://diecutter.io/github/novagile/diecutter/0.5/demo/templates/greetings.txt
Hello Novapost!

Of course, you can also render directories as archives:

$ curl -X POST -d django_project=wonderful http://diecutter.io/github/novagile/diecutter/0.5/demo/templates/+django_project+/ | tar -zt
manage.py
wonderful/__init__.py
wonderful/settings.py
wonderful/urls.py
wonderful/wsgi.py

Supported URLs are http://diecutter.io/github/<owner>/<project>/<revision>/<path/to/file/or/directory>, where:

  • <owner> is the repository owner, "novagile" in the examples above.
  • <project> is the repository name, "diecutter" in the examples above.
  • <revision> is the commit, tag or branch, "0.5" in the examples above.
  • <path/to/file/or/directory> is the path to the file or directory template in the repository, "demo/templates/greetings.txt" in the first example above.

Yes, that's all.

Why does it matter?

Remote templates feature makes diecutter.io a SAAS: you can use diecutter.io service to render templates that are managed in online public repositories. The templates does not belong to diecutter. You, or third-party authors, own them.

Now, let's share templates online!

What's next?

We are planning various improvements:

  • performance and scalability related to loading templates on Github
  • support of multiple templates engines depending on the template to render. Jinja2 and Django to begin
  • SSL on diecutter.io
  • improved documentation
  • more shared templates!

And more... Check milestones for details about the roadmap.

Fri 19 July 2013 By Benoît Bryon