Spark Documentation

Table of Contents

  1. Spark Documentation
    1. Basic markup
    2. Samples
    3. Misc added - needs documentation
  1. Expressions
    1. Simple csharp expressions
    2. Using Mvc Helpers
    3. Conditional expression elements
    4. Conditional expression attributes
    5. Looping and iteration
    6. Iteration with the each attribute
    7. Using namespace
  1. Variables
    1. Declaring local variables
    2. Declaring global variables
    3. Setting local and global values
    4. Using view data
    5. Using view data with a typed model
  1. Organizing Content
    1. Master-View relationship
    2. Named content sections
    3. Parsing and rendering partial files
    4. Implicit partial rendering

Basic markup

A view file has basic html markup that can appear pretty much as you'd expect. 

<div>
  <p>Hello <span>world</span>!</p>
</div>

Samples

list.xml 

<viewdata
  Category="Category"
  Categories="IList[[Category]]"/>

<!-- Note - there is property Category of type Category
in the ViewData. It just looks like a typo. -->

<content name="leftColumn">
  <h2>Categories</h2>
  <ul>
    <for each='var cat in Categories'>
      <var isSelected='cat.CategoryID == Category.CategoryID'/>
      <li style='${isSelected ? "font-weight:bold" : ""}'>
        $Html.ActionLink[[ProductsController]](
          p=>p.Category(cat.CategoryID), 
          cat.CategoryName);
      </li>
    </for>
  </ul>
</content>

<h2>$Category.CategoryName;</h2>
<ul>
  <for each="var product in Category.Products">
    <Product/>
  </for>
</ul>

<p>$Html.ActionLink("Add New Product", "New");</p>

_Product.xml 

<li>
  $product.ProductName;
  <span class="editlink">$Html.ActionLink[[ProductsController]](c=>c.Edit(product.ProductID), "Edit");</span>
</li>

Master template 

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  <head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
    <viewdata Title="string"/>
    <title>$Html.Encode(Title ?? "My Sample MVC Application");</title>
    <link href="../../Content/Site.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
    <use namespace="MvcContrib.Samples.SparkViewEngine.Controllers"/>
    <use namespace="MvcContrib.Samples.SparkViewEngine.Models"/>
    <use namespace="System.Collections.Generic"/>
  </head>
  <body>
    <div class="page">

      <div id="header">
        <p id="logo">
          <a href="">$Html.Encode(Title ?? "My Sample MVC Application");</a>
        </p>
        <ul id="mainMenu">
          <li>$Html.ActionLink("Home", "Index", "Home");</li>
          <li>$Html.ActionLink("About", "About", "Home");</li>
          <li>$Html.ActionLink[[ProductsController]](c=>c.Category(1), "Products");</li>
        </ul>
      </div>

      <div id="mainContent">

        <div class="columnsContainer">

          <div class="leftColumn">
            <use content="leftColumn"/>
          </div>

          <div class="rightColumn">
            $Content["view"];
          </div>

          <div class="clear">
          </div>

        </div>

        <div id="footer">
          <p>
            My Sample MVC Application &copy; Copyright 2008
          </p>
          <ViewSource/>
        </div>

      </div>
    </div>
  </body>
</html>

_ViewSource.xml 

<p>
  <use namespace="MvcContrib.Samples.SparkViewEngine.Controllers"/>
  $Html.ActionLink[[HomeController]](
    c=>c.ViewSource(
      ViewContext.RouteData.GetRequiredString("controller"),
      ViewContext.ViewName,
      ViewContext.MasterName),
    "View source");
</p>

Misc added - needs documentation

  • Added controller and "application" as default master names in shared directory
  • Additional <%=expression%> syntax added
  • Inline csharp statements added with <%code%> or #code
  • Added <macro name="Foo"></macro> function declaration
  • Added monorail specific support for view components
  • Added automatic index integer to for loops
  • Support for 'literal' as "literal"
  • Removed $expression; syntax
  • Added <test if="expression"> and inline <else if="expression"/> and <else/>