NOTE this gem is work in progress, I'll flesh out the instructions once it's stabilized

This gem may be of use to you if:

• angle brackets burn your eyes (read: you like using haml)
  • NOTE: if you're fine with angle brackets, stop reading, you're probably better off just using mustache
  • see http://railscasts.com/episodes/295-sharing-mustache-templates
• you want your app to consume its own API and do most rendering clientside (e.g. using backbone.js, spine.js etc.)
• but you still need to render server-side (so the googlebot and paranoid no-js people can see your lovely, lovely content)
• and, importantly, you prefer DRY apps to WET ones (i.e. you don't want to write equivalent clientside and serverside templates)

Still here? Ok, this gem lets you:

• write templates using a haml/handlebars.js hybrid
• the haml describes the structure of the document while the handlebars syntax is used for substitution and logical flow
• it assumes you are using the rabl gem to generate JSON data for your view

What it does is:

• convert your hybrid templates to valid haml in which the handlebars markup is just treated as text
• then runs that through the standard haml handler to generate regular handlebars templates (html + curly braces)
• when rendering serverside it uses execjs and your rabl-generated JSON to render the template
• but it also ships pre-compiled versions of your templates and JSON data to the client (using the gon gem) so that you can switch to clientside rendering for subsequent requests

Add this to your Gemfile if using Bundler: gem 'dry_haml_handlebars'

Or install the gem from the command line: gem install dry_haml_handlebars

The syntax for your templates is a readable mix of haml and handlebars:

.entry
  .h1 {{title}}
  {{#if subtitle}}
    .h2 {{subtitle}}
  {{/if}}
  .h3 By
    = link_to "{{author.name}}", user_path("{{author.id}}"), 'data-remote' => true
  posted at {{localize created_at}}
  .body
    {{{body}}}

Benefits:

• the brevity and structural clarity that haml provides
• the ability to use standard rails helpers to generate html
• concise flow constrol and substitution via handlebars
• the ability to use custom handlebars helpers (e.g. localize)
• seamless integration with your JSON API - structure the JSON (via rabl), then structure the view around it

more to follow...

Thanks to the authors of:

• the handlebars gem (made server side compilation easy)

Copyright (c) 2012 PeepAll Ltd, released under the MIT license