Dynamic documents assembling and printing into various formats
npm install toner#jsreport toner

node library for dynamic assembling documents and printing them into various formats
(written for jsreport)
``js
`
var toner = require("toner")();
toner.engine("jsrender", require("toner-jsrender"));
toner.recipe("wkhtmltopdf", require("toner-wkhtmltopdf")());
toner.render({
template: {
engine: "jsrender",
recipe: "wkhtmltopdf",
content: "{{:foo}}
"
},
data: { foo: "hello world"}
}, function(err, res) {
var pdfbuffer = res.content;
var pdfstream = res.stream;
});
`
##Basics
###Engines
Documents are assembled using javascript templating engines. The engine needs to be first registered in toner.
js
`
toner.engine("[engine name]", pathToEngineScript);
none
You can write your own engine or use an existing one:
- toner-handlebars
- toner-jsrender
Note that templating engine runs safely in another sand-boxed process. You don't have to be afraid to run user defined templates. See script-manager for details.
You can register and use engine to skip its processing:
`
js
`
toner.engine('none', toner.noneEngine);
toner.render({
template: {
engine: 'none'
...
}
`
###Recipes
The actual printing of the document into pdf, excel or any other type of the document is done by something we call recipe. The recipe also needs to be registered first.
js
`
toner.recipe("[recipe name]", function(req, res) { ... });
html
You can also write your own recipe or use an existing one:
- toner-phantom
- toner-html-to-xlsx
- toner-wkhtmltopdf
You can use recipe to simply produce html:
`
js
`
toner.recipe("html", toner.htmlRecipe);
toner.render({
template: {
recipe: 'html'
...
}
toner.render
###Render
The complete document generation is invoked using function:
`js
`
toner.render({
template: {
engine: "jsrender",
recipe: "wkhtmltopdf",
content: "{{:foo}}
"
},
data: { foo: "hello world"}
}, function(err, res) {
var pdfbuffer = res.content;
var pdfstream = res.stream;
});
`
The only parameter is an object representing rendering request. The request has following structure:
js
`
{
//[required]
template: {
//[required] templating engine used to assemble document
engine: "jsrender",
//[required] recipe used for printing previously assembled document
recipe: "wkhtmltopdf",
//[required] template for the engine
content: "{{:foo}}
",
//javascript helper functions used by templating engines
helpers: "function foo() { ...}" +
"function foo2() { ... }"
//any other settings used by recipes
...
},
//dynamic data inputs used by templating engines
data: { foo: "hello world"}
...
}
`
The render callback then contains the response with
js
`
{
//node.js buffer with the document
content: ...
//stream with the document
stream: ...
//http response headers with valid content type..
headers: { ... }
}
`
##Pipe the document to the http response
js
`
var http = require('http');
http.createServer(function (req, res) {
toner.render({...}, function(err, out) {
out.stream.pipe(res);
});
}).listen(1337, '127.0.0.1');
`
##Hooks
It is expected there will soon popup other packages hooking into the Toner and adding additional functionality. For this case Toner provides several hooks which can be used to extend it.
js
`
toner.before(function(req, res, cb) { ... });
toner.after(function(req, res, cb) { ... });
toner.afterEngine(function(req, res, cb) { ... });
`
##Options
Calling Toner accepts some options as the parameter
js
`
var toner = require("toner")({ ... });
tempDirectory
Possible options:
- - this attribute is used by the recipes to store temporary files
`
- options passed to the script-manager depndency
##Tests
bash
``
npm install
npm test
##Contributions
Yes, please.
##License
MIT