haml--haml/README

= Haml and Sass

Haml and Sass are templating engines
for the two most common types of documents on the web:
HTML and CSS, respectively.
They are designed to make it both easier and more pleasant
to code HTML and CSS documents,
by eliminating redundancy,
reflecting the underlying structure that the document represents,
and providing elegant, easily understandable, and powerful syntax.

== Formatting

=== Haml

The most basic element of Haml
is a shorthand for creating HTML tags:

  %tagname{ :attr1 => 'value1', :attr2 => 'value2' } Contents

No end-tag is needed; Haml handles that automatically.
Adding <tt>class</tt> and <tt>id</tt> attributes is even easier.
Haml uses the same syntax as the CSS that styles the document:

  %tagname#id.class

In fact, when you're using the <tt><div></tt> tag,
it becomes <em>even easier</em>.
Because <tt><div></tt> is such a common element,
a tag without a name defaults to a div. So

  #foo Hello!

becomes

  <div id='foo'>Hello!</foo>
  
Haml uses indentation
to bring the individual elements to represent the HTML structure.
A tag's children are indented two spaces more than the parent tag.
Again, a closing tag is automatically added.
For example:

  %ul
    %li Salt
    %li Pepper

becomes:

  <ul>
    <li>Salt</li>
    <li>Pepper</li>
  </ul>

You can also put plain text as a child of an element:

  %p
    Hello,
    World!

It's even possible to embed Ruby code into Haml documents.
An equals sign, <tt>=</tt>, will output the result of the code.
A hyphen, <tt>-</tt>, will run the code but not output the result.
You can even use control statements
like <tt>if</tt> and <tt>while</tt>:

  %p
    Date/Time:
    - now = DateTime.now
    %strong= now
    - if now > DateTime.parse("December 31, 2006")
      = "Happy new " + "year!"

Haml provides far more tools than those presented here.
Check out the reference documentation in the Haml module.

=== Sass

*add docs*

== Authors

Haml and Sass are designed by Hampton Catlin (hcatlin).
Help with the Ruby On Rails implementation and much of the documentation
by Jeff Hardy (packagethief).

Nathan Weizenbaum (Nex3) contributed the buffered-engine code to Haml,
along with many other enhancements
(including the silent-line syntax: "-").
He continues to actively work on both Haml and Sass.

If you use this software, you must pay Hampton a compliment.
Say something nice about it.
Beyond that, the implementation is licensed under the MIT License.
Ok, fine, I guess that means compliments aren't *required*.