MasterView™ - Rails-optimized (x)html friendly template engine

MasterView™ is a ruby/rails optimized HTML/XHTML friendly template engine. It is designed to use the full power and productivity of rails including layouts, partials, and rails html helpers while still being editable/styleable in a WYSIWYG HTML editor.

Author:	Jeff Barczewski (jeff.barczewski (at) gmail (dot) com)
Primary developers:	Jeff Barczewski, Deb Lewis
License:	MIT open source license (like Rails)	Mailing lists:	Join mailing lists at rubyforge.org `masterview-announce` - MasterView release announcements `masterview-users` - Discussion, problems, ideas, suggestions for MasterView `masterview-devel` - MasterView project developer list
Website:	masterview.org
Rubyforge project:	masterview

Why invent another templating engine? In short, to be able to use standard web design tools such as WYSIWYG editors to design and lay out pages for a rails site, without giving up the power and productivity of layouts, partials, and rails helpers. As programmers, we want to be able to create rails view templates which can also be worked on by web designers with their own tools for complex graphics and styling. If you are interested in the background story and the goals of the MasterView project, visit the About page to learn more.

Quick Start and Roadmap

MasterView is distributed as a gem or a plugin. You may install it as a gem and then generate a lightweight plugin which mainly refers to the gem or you can simply install as a plugin which is self contained. I personally prefer installing as a gem for ease of management, however if you are running at a shared hosting environment you might not have authority to install this gem so you may install as a self contained plugin.

Usage Scenarios

New project - use MasterView to generate view to get your CRUD up quickly. Edit files in WYSIWYG editor to achieve layout and style you like for your project. Re-edit as needed throughout project
Existing html prototype - sprinkle MasterView attribute directives into existing html prototype to bring prototype alive. Re-edit prototype as needed
Hybrid of legacy and new - MasterView will coexist nicely with existing rhtml being able to utilize it in new templates or even bring the rhtml into a MasterView template to drive it from there. Build your new MasterView templates with the generator or by augmenting html prototypes.

See the MasterView User's Guide for information on using MasterView templates and supporting services. View the MasterView rendering illustration to understand how a MasterView template renders rhtml

See the MasterView Directives Reference for complete descriptions of all the standard built-in MasterView directives.

Diagrams, Screenshots, and Videos

The Screencasts section includes a variety of diagrams, illustrations, screencasts, and other media which provide an introduction and overview of MasterView.

Illustrations/Diagrams

MasterView rendering illustration - showing how MasterView renders rhtml internally

Screenshots

MasterView screenshots - showing some generated MasterView templates and MasterView Admin page

Videos

MasterView Short Video - demonstrating basic usage of MasterView (no audio, ~5 minutes, uses flash)
MasterView Quick Start Video - longer video detailing basic configuration and operation of MasterView (no audio, ~25 minutes, uses flash)

Prerequisites

Requires:	No external dependencies, but needs REXML 3.1.4 or higher which comes with standard Ruby 1.8.5+ install
Optional:	tidy, log4r

See the MasterView Installation Guide for details.

Installation and Configuration

See the MasterView Installation Guide for complete installation instructions.

Briefly installation/launching is as follows:

> gem install masterview_gem_pack
> rails demo; cd demo
> script/generate masterview_plugin
> script/generate masterview YOURMODEL YOURCONTROLLERNAME
> script/server

See the MasterView Configuration Guide for information about customizing the MasterView configuration settings for your application.