Sparkup

Sparkup lets you write HTML code faster. Don't believe us? See it in action!

You can write HTML in a CSS-like syntax, and have Sparkup handle the expansion to full HTML code. It is meant to help you write long HTML blocks in your text editor by letting you type less characters than needed.

Sparkup is written in Python, and requires Python 2.5 or newer (2.5 is preinstalled in Mac OS X Leopard). Sparkup also offers intregration into common text editors. Support for VIM and TextMate are currently included.

A short screencast is available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw3jipcenKc

Usage and installation

You may download Sparkup from Github. Download the latest version here.

• TextMate: Simply double-click on the Sparkup.tmbundle package in Finder. This will install it automatically. In TextMate, open an HTML file (orset the document type to HTML) type in something (e.g., #header > h1), then press Ctrl + E. Pressing Tab will cycle through empty elements.

• VIM: See the vim/README.txt file for details.

• Others/command line use: You may put sparkup in your $PATH somewhere. You may then invoke it by typing echo "(input here)" | sparkup, or sparkup --help for a list of commands.

Credits

Sparkup is written by Rico Sta. Cruz and is released under the MIT license.

This project is inspired by Zen Coding of Vadim Makeev. The Zen HTML syntax is forward-compatible with Sparkup (anything that Zen HTML can parse, Sparkup can too).

The following people have contributed code to the project:

• Guillermo O. Freschi (Tordek @ github) Bugfixes to the parsing system

• Eric Van Dewoestine (ervandew @ github) Improvements to the VIM plugin

Examples

div expands to:

<div></div>

div#header expands to:

    <div id="header"></div>

div.align-left#header expands to:

    <div id="header" class="align-left"></div>

div#header + div#footer expands to:

    <div id="header"></div>
    <div id="footer"></div>

#menu > ul expands to:

    <div id="menu">
        <ul></ul>
    </div>

#menu > h3 + ul expands to:

    <div id="menu">
        <h3></h3>
        <ul></ul>
    </div>

#header > h1{Welcome to our site} expands to:

    <div id="header">
        <h1>Welcome to our site</h1>
    </div>

a[href=index.html]{Home} expands to:

    <a href="index.html">Home</a>

ul > li*3 expands to:

    <ul>
        <li></li>
        <li></li>
        <li></li>
    </ul>

ul > li.item-$*3 expands to:

    <ul>
        <li class="item-1"></li>
        <li class="item-2"></li>
        <li class="item-3"></li>
    </ul>

ul > li.item-$*3 > strong expands to:

    <ul>
        <li class="item-1"><strong></strong></li>
        <li class="item-2"><strong></strong></li>
        <li class="item-3"><strong></strong></li>
    </ul>

table > tr*2 > td.name + td*3 expands to:

    <table>
        <tr>
            <td class="name"></td>
            <td></td>
            <td></td>
            <td></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td class="name"></td>
            <td></td>
            <td></td>
            <td></td>
        </tr>
    </table>

#header > ul > li < p{Footer} expands to:

    <!-- The < symbol goes back up the parent; i.e., the opposite of >. -->
    <div id="header">
        <ul>
            <li></li>
        </ul>
        <p>Footer</p>
    </div>