Elandel is a template language and ecosystem for authoring hypermedia documents on the web.
It is a TypeScript library with an extensible HTML engine based on Unified and hast (Hypertext Abstract Syntax Tree format); and CSS engine based on PostCSS. It can:
- Parse a template into a syntax tree
- Beautify its formatting
- Render with loops, logic, and dynamic content
There is an editor library based on CodeMirror that integrates with the language, providing hints, autocomplete, linting (syntax check), and formatting. The editor is designed to be extended with additional features such as charts, diagrams, musical blocks.
The goal is to create a cross-platform template language that works in the browser, server side (WordPress/PHP/MySQL/SQLite), and JavaScript runtimes (Node/Bun). This portability would allow features like:
- Instant preview in the editor without request to server
- Local-first web authoring environment with deploy to cloud
- Content management frontend and server with data sources
- Static site generation
As the project develops, it will include a comprehensive test suite and documentation of language features.
- Computational notebooks - Shareable, browser-based documents that can run code
- End-user Programming - Empowering users with a living system to create their own software for personal computing
- Literate programming - Programs are written as literature that describes each section of code