2. Tutorials
  3. hapi — How to Use Multiple Handlebars Layouts

hapi — How to Use Multiple Handlebars Layouts

While running a website you’ll probably iterate on the design and functionality. Adding new pages is a good start to take a different path from your layout and apply new design ideas.

At Future Studio, we’ve applied a different design to the galaxy map, compared to other pages. Using layouts in handlebars simplifies this process a lot. This tutorial walks you through the hapi setup on how to use different handlebars layouts.

hapi Series Overview

  1. Get Your Server Up and Running
  2. v17 Upgrade Guide (Your Move to async/await)
  3. Become a Better Developer in 2018
  4. Become a Better Developer in 2017
  1. What You’ll Build
  2. Prepare Your Project: Stack & Structure
  3. Environment Variables and Storing Secrets
  4. Set Up MongoDB and Connect With Mongoose
  5. Sending Emails in Node.js
  6. Load the User’s Profile Picture From Gravatar Using Virtuals in Mongoose
  7. Implement a User Profile Editing Screen
  8. Generate a Username in Mongoose Middleware
  9. Displaying Seasons and Episodes for TV Shows with Mongoose Relationship Population
  10. Implementing Pagination for Movies
  11. Implement a Watchlist
  12. Create a Full Text Search with MongoDB
  1. Create a REST API with JSON Endpoints
  2. Update Mongoose Models for JSON Responses
  3. API Pagination for TV Shows
  4. Customize API Endpoints with Query Parameters
  5. Always Throw and Handle API Validation Errors
  6. Advanced API Validation With Custom Errors
  7. Create an API Documentation with Swagger
  8. Customize Your Swagger API Documentation URL
  9. Describe Endpoint Details in Your Swagger API Documentation
  10. 10 Tips on API Testing With Postman
  11. JWT Authentication in Swagger API Documentation
  12. API Versioning with Request Headers
  1. IP-Based Rate Limits (Part 1 of 7)
  2. Rate Limits for Routes (Part 2 of 7)
  3. Dynamic Rate Limits (Part 3 of 7)
  4. Render a “Rate Limit Exceeded” View (Part 4 of 7)
  5. Show “Rate Limit Exceeded” Error on Login (Part 5 of 7)
  6. Disable Rate Limiting (Part 6 of 7)
  7. Rate Limiter Refactoring & Cleanup (Part 7 of 7)
  1. API Login With Username and Password to Generate a JWT
  2. JWT Authentication and Private API Endpoints
  3. Refresh Tokens With JWT Authentication
  4. Create a JWT Utility
  5. JWT Refresh Token for Multiple Devices
  6. Check Refresh Token in Authentication Strategy
  7. Rate Limit Your Refresh Token API Endpoint
  8. How to Revoke a JWT
  9. Invalidate JWTs With Blacklists
  10. JWT Logout (Part 1/2)
  11. JWT “Immediate” Logout (Part 2/2)
  12. A Better Place to Invalidate Tokens
  13. How to Switch the JWT Signing Algorithm
  14. Roll Your Own Refresh Token Authentication Scheme
  15. JWT Claims 101
  16. Use JWT With Asymmetric Signatures (RS256 & Co.)
  17. Encrypt the JWT Payload (The Simple Way)
  18. Increase JWT Security Beyond the Signature
  19. Unsigned JSON Web Tokens (Unsecured JWS)
  20. JWK and JWKS Overview
  21. Provide a JWKS API Endpoint
  22. Create a JWK from a Shared Secret
  23. JWT Verification via JWKS API Endpoint
  24. What is JOSE in JWT
  25. Encrypt a JWT (the JWE Way)
  26. Authenticate Encrypted JWTs (JWE)
  27. Encrypted and Signed JWT (Nested JWT)
  28. Bringing Back JWT Decoding and Authentication
  29. Bringing Back JWT Claims in the JWT Payload
  1. How to Run Separate Frontend and Backend Servers Within a Single Project
  2. How to Use Server Labels
  3. How to Correctly Stop Your Server and Close Existing Connections
  1. Basic Authentication With Username and Password
  2. Authentication and Remember Me Using Cookies
  3. How to Set a Default Authentication Strategy
  4. Define Multiple Authentication Strategies for a Route
  5. Restrict User Access With Scopes
  6. Show „Insufficient Scope“ View for Routes With Restricted Access
  7. Access Restriction With Dynamic and Advanced Scopes
  8. hapi - How to Fix „unknown authentication strategy“
  9. Authenticate with GitHub And Remember the Login
  10. Authenticate with GitLab And Remember the User
  11. How to Combine Bell With Another Authentication Strategy
  12. Custom OAuth Bell Strategy to Connect With any Server
  13. Redirect to Previous Page After Login
  14. How to Implement a Complete Sign Up Flow With Email and Password
  15. How to Implement a Complete Login Flow
  16. Implement a Password-Reset Flow
  1. Extend Your Server Functionality With Plugins
  2. Create Your Own Custom Plugin
  3. How to Register Plugins for a Selected Server Instance
  4. hapi Plugin for Client Geo Location (by Future Studio 🚀)
  5. Increase Development Speed With Errors in the Browser or as JSON Response
  1. Route Handling and Drive Traffic to Your Server
  2. How to Serve Static Files (Images, JS, CSS, etc.)
  3. How to Use Query Parameters
  4. Optional Path Parameters
  5. Multi-Segment/Wildcard Path Parameters
  6. Ignore Trailing Slashes on Route Paths
  7. How to Fix “Unsupported Media Type”
  1. How to Access and Handle Request Payload
  2. Access Request Headers
  3. How to Manage Cookies and HTTP States Across Requests
  4. Detect and Get the Client IP Address
  5. How to Upload Files
  6. Quick Access to Logged In User in Route Handlers
  7. How to Fix “handler method did not return a value, a promise, or throw an error”
  8. How to Fix “X must return an error, a takeover response, or a continue signal”
  1. How to Reply a JSON Response
  2. How to Set Response Status Code
  3. How to Handle 404 Responses for Missing Routes
  1. Query Parameter Validation With Joi
  2. Path Parameter Validation With Joi
  3. Request Payload Validation With Joi
  4. Validate Query and Path Parameters, Payload and Headers All at Once on Your Routes
  5. Validate Request Headers With Joi
  6. Reply Custom View for Failed Validations
  7. Handle Failed Validations and Show Errors Details at Inputs
  8. How to Fix AssertionError, Cannot validate HEAD or GET requests
  1. Add CSRF Protection on Forms and API Endpoints
  1. Report Errors to Sentry
  2. Don’t Report Errors to Sentry in Development Mode
  3. Logging Fundamentals
  4. Log to Console With Good
  5. Log to File With Good
  1. Getting Started With Testing Using Lab and Code
  2. Run Tests with Assertions using Code
  3. Test Route Handlers by Injecting Requests
  4. Inject Request Payload, Headers and Parameters While Testing Route Handlers
  1. Zero-Downtime Deployments Using PM2

View Rendering in hapi

To apply handlebars layouts in hapi, you need to set up view support in your application using the vision plugin. There’s a dedicated tutorial on how to render and reply views.

If you didn’t prepare your project for views yet, head over to the linked tutorial and move on once you’ve completed the setup.

The Single Layout Problem

While configuring the view support with server.views(config) in your project, you can specify a layout that will be used to render all your views. The setup in your project might look like this:

server.views({  
  engines: {
    html: require('handlebars')
  },
  layout: 'my-layout',
  path: Path.resolve('path/to/view/template/files')
})

With the layout: 'my-layout' property, you’re telling vision to use the my-layout file from within your views folder. The path to your view files is defined within path.

The problem with this setup is that vision uses my-layout for all pages that get rendered on server side. The next paragraph shows you how apply a different layout when using reply.view.

Using Multiple Handlebars Layouts

Let’s say your my-layout file specifies the layout for your site that is suitable for 80% of your web pages. It imports your header and footer, and keeps the content responsive using a CSS framework’s grid.

Within the rest 20% of pages you want to add a dedicated hero area with a gradient background and highlight a single element.

The requirements for sites with and without the hero area can be processed using two different layouts (with their custom placeholders and imports).

Well, hapi and especially vision allow you to define a different layout when rendering a view from your route handler:

hapi v17

server.route({  
  method: 'GET',
  path: '/second',
  handler: (request, h) => {
    return h.view('index', null, { layout: 'another-layout' })
  }
})

hapi v16

server.route({  
  method: 'GET',
  path: '/second',
  handler: (request, reply) => {
    reply.view('index', null, { layout: 'another-layout' })
  }
})

The short snippet above illustrates that reply.view allows three parameters:

  1. template: the template file name, located within the view’s path
  2. context data: (optional) used to render data into your view placeholders (e.g., {{tag}} in handlebars)
  3. options: (optional) view configuration object, used to override the server’s view manager configuration for this individual response

Almost all the view configuration options from vision are available, except isCached, partialsPath, and helpersPath. Everything else can be overridden for the view rendering process.

The route handler within the code snippet above overrides the layout property within the view configuration and instead defines another-layout to be used for this response.

That’s all the magic, awesome!

Outlook

This tutorial showed you how to benefit from multiple handlebars layouts within your hapi app. If you want to use different layouts throughout your website, make use of available view manager options for the view rendering process within route handlers.

Customize the rendering behavior with dedicated options and use the flexibility given by vision and hapi.

We’re happy to hear your thoughts and comments. Please don’t hesitate to use the comments below or find us on Twitter @futurestud_io. Let us know what you think!

Enjoy coding & make it rock!

Additional Resources

Marcus Pöhls

Marcus is a fullstack JS developer. He’s passionate about the hapi framework for Node.js and loves to build web apps and APIs. Creator of Futureflix and the “learn hapi” learning path.

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