Possibility of changing the opening/closing symbols for template tags

[scriptogre]

Hello creator(s) of Slippers!

I have heard about your project from this guy on YouTube, BugBytes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oC1K8IKK3Vo

I was excited to use it but was disappointed to see my IDE (IntelliJ) refusing to accept the newly created template tags.

Prefixing any tag with a special character (besides underscores _ and dashes - ) throws out errors from the inspector.

After days of trying, I haven't found a way to disable the inspector for that specific error. Nor could I register the symbol-containing tags by creating some kind of new rule. It just didn't work.

I just lived with it, but after a couple of days of writing templates full of fake errors, I got so bugged out that I gave up and looked for an alternative.

Then I found django-components, which did a similar job to Slippers, but in my opinion, is way too verbose and so I came back to slippers.

Unfortunately, picking up another IDE is not an option after years of getting used to it. So this time, I tried to fix this issue by monkey-patching the code inside templatetags/slippers.py (really ran out of options).

OPENING_SYMBOL = "__"
CLOSING_SYMBOL = "___"


# Copied from slippers source code
#
# Replaces opening / closing symbols for tags
# #card and /card --> __card and ___card
#
# Fixes IntelliJ IDE template inspector throwing errors

# Component tags
def create_component_tag(template_path):
    def do_component(parser, token):
        tag_name, *remaining_bits = token.split_contents()

        # Block components start with OPENING_SYMBOL
        # Expect a closing tag
        if tag_name.startswith(OPENING_SYMBOL):
            nodelist = parser.parse((f"{CLOSING_SYMBOL}{tag_name[len(CLOSING_SYMBOL):]}",))
            parser.delete_first_token()
        else:
            nodelist = None

For motives unbeknownst to me, the template tags won't be registered when applying this monkey patch, but I have not given up on this solution yet and would come up with a pull request once everything is working well.

Any chance of adding the option to change the template tag prefixes (possibly using a settings.py variable)?

Massive respect for creating this library, Chris, a slippers fan :)

[SebastianDix]

Exactly my situation!

[weilharter]

The startTag # and endTag / is a very exotic solution and therefore not a good design decision in terms of IDE/Syntax Highlighting support.

@mixxorz I'd suggest to add another component format with better support:

similar to django-components:

{% component "calendar" date="2020-06-06" %}
   Foobar
{% endcomponent %}

instead of

{% #calendar date="2020-06-06" %}
   Foobar
{% /calendar %}

[jmuncaster]

Love this library, but also would love to see different or customizable open/close tags and agree # and / are exotic.

I think the most idiomatic would be something like:

{% calendar date="2020-06-06" %}
Child
{% endcalendar %}

But the inline syntax is not obvious. Perhaps some suffix would do the trick? Like:

{% calendar_ date="2020-06-06" %}

I also like @weilharter 's proposal.

If nothing else, the ability to customize the open/close tags to be more IDE-friendly would be great.

[mixxorz]

I will admit the syntax is a bit of a hack, but it's one that works with DTL.

I think the root of the problem isn't the syntax, but lack of IDE support which I am aware.

There is technically enough code that can be statically analyzed in components.yaml and the as yet undocumented front-matter type definitions (#25) to make a really good IDE integration. (Component completion, go to definition, component parameter hints, etc.) Hopefully someone (or me) would make that one day.

I'm not closing the door on a different way to use the components though. Suggestions are welcome.

[SebastianDix]

I will admit the syntax is a bit of a hack, but it's one that works with DTL.

I think the root of the problem isn't the syntax, but lack of IDE support which I am aware.

There is technically enough code that can be statically analyzed in components.yaml and the as yet undocumented front-matter type definitions (#25) to make a really good IDE integration. (Component completion, go to definition, component parameter hints, etc.) Hopefully someone (or me) would make that one day.

I'm not closing the door on a different way to use the components though. Suggestions are welcome.

This is a Python / Django library. PyCharm is probably the most popular (paid) IDE and probably the most 'pro' IDE for Python out there. PyCharm will not change for Slippers that easily and a good IDE integration seems overkill.

What is preventing us from using the @scriptogre solution it so that the opening and closing tags are configurable to be normal {% slipper "component_name" %} {% endslipper "component_name" %} tags which will be properly supported and indented by all IDEs? :-) (I know I can make a PR myself, but I probably didn't study the innards of this library enough and it's been some months since I last looked at the source, so I ask the author first, but was thinking of making this my first open-source contribution since I like the idea of this library a lot)

[IanLuan]

In my opinion, we could get rid of inline components to improve the developer experience.

# block component 
{% card %}

{% endcard %}

or

# inline component
{% card %}{% endcard %}

This way just adds the need to close the tag, but I believe it's still much better than # and /.

[nanuxbe]

There is currently a draft PR in progress to support adding @weilharter 's proposed syntax here: https://github.com/mixxorz/slippers/pull/55