Use view routes when a route primarily exists to render a template. They help keep rendering code from being duplicated across handlers by giving routing and rendering one shared pattern.
Example
app.view.render = async (filePath, props) => {
return await renderTemplate(filePath, props);
};
app.view.engine = async (filePath, req, res) => {
const html = await app.view.render(filePath, req.data());
res.setHTML(html);
};
app.view.get('/profile', './views/profile.hbs');This split is useful because render becomes the reusable primitive while engine becomes the route-facing adapter that writes to the response.
Response data for templates
res.data() is useful when a handler needs to pass view-only values into the template without mixing them into the real result set.
app.view.engine = async (filePath, req, res) => {
const props = res.data();
const html = await app.view.render(filePath, {
...req.data(),
props
});
res.setHTML(html);
};This keeps template data separate from the real result set. A handler can attach view-only values to res.data() while still returning the actual payload with setResults():
if (res.code === 200) {
res.data.set('sessionId', 'abc123');
res.data.set('sessionUser', 'John Doe');
}
res.setResults(results);Conditional rendering in handlers
Because render is separate, you can render manually inside a route or event handler when the response depends on runtime conditions.
export default async function UserDetail({ req, res, ctx }) {
if (req.data.has('id')) {
const html = await ctx.view.render('./views/me.hbs', {
id: req.data('id')
});
res.setHTML(html);
}
}If the handler sets a body itself, a matching app.view.get('/user/:id', './views/user.hbs') route will not also render on top of that response.
app.view.get('/user/:id', './views/user.hbs');
app.get('/user/:id', async ({ req, res, ctx }) => {
if (req.data('id') === 'me') {
const html = await ctx.view.render('./views/me.hbs', {
id: req.data('id')
});
res.setHTML(html);
}
});Why use this
- keep route lookup and view lookup connected
- support server-rendered pages without writing a full action for simple pages
- reuse rendering logic outside direct view routes