Helpers in caboose are blocks of code that can be imported easily into your controllers and views.

Via import

Helpers are located in the app/helpers directory and are modules named specifically. In order to be recognized by the import keyword, helper files must be named [helper-name]_helper.coffee or [helper-name]_helper.js. For instance, a string helper could be named string_helper.coffee and would be accessible by import 'StringHelper'. These helpers are just normal node modules.

app/helpers/string_helper.coffee

exports.ellipsis = (value, length) ->
  return value if value.length < length
  value.substr(0, length - 3) + '...'

exports.truncate = (value, length) ->
  value.substr(0, length)
    

You can use the imported helper within the controller, like in the for_example field below, or in the view by using the helper attribute.

app/controllers/posts_controller.coffee

import 'StringHelper'

class PostsController extends Controller
  helper StringHelper
  
  show: ->
    @post = {
      author: 'Mr. Clean'
      content: 'This is something really long and arbitrarily complex.  I' not sure why someone would write something this long!'
      for_example: StringHelper.trucate('Truncate this to 10 characters', 10)
    }
    @render()
    

app/views/users/index.html.ejs

<%= @post.author %>

  <%= ellipsis(@post.content, 80) %>

    

As an object

You can also use the helper attribute to make any object available to the view layer.

app/controllers/posts_controller.coffee

class PostsController extends Controller
  helper {
    random_quip: ->
      # generate some random quip
    moment: require('moment')
  }

  index: -> @render()
    

app/views/users/index.html.ejs

Welcome to my wonderful website!

  It is currently <%= moment().format('LT') %>



  <%= random_quip() %>