Add "set" Method to "Router"

[akesser]

Hey guys,
I think it would be nice to be able to set options to single Routes. For example one can set a default layout for the handlebars rendering engine with

app.set('view options', { layout: 'main' });

or with

app.engine(".hbs", handlebars({
    defaultLayout: "main", 
}));

When using a express.Router() for example with app.use("/admin", adminRouter) it would be nice to be able to use something like

adminRouter.set('view options', { layout: 'adminMain' });

to prevent using

res.render('home', {layout: "adminMain"});

for every call to res.render

Thanks

-André-

[akesser]

I found that one way to solve my special Layout problem is

adminRouter.use(function(req, res, next)
{
    res.locals.layout = "adminMain";
    next();
});

[akesser]

The solution from yesterday is no real solution.

Consider the following example

var adminRouter = express.Router();
adminRouter.use(function(req, res, next)
{
    res.locals.layout = "adminMain";
    next();
});
adminRouter.get("/", admin.admin);

app.use("/admin", adminRouter);
app.get("/register", register.register);

When I first visit the /registerroute, everything is fine.
But when I call /admin/and then the /register route, res.locals.layout is set to "adminMain". As a result to this, in the /register route the wrong layout is rendered.

[dougwilson]

This needs discussion, but from me I am (currently) -1, because that's what the difference is between an app and a router: an app has settings.

[grabbou]

In case you need different settings, you should go with a sub-app pattern and in your main express app, actually use it.

firstExpressapp.use('/admin/', anotherExpressApp);

@dougwilson is there any performance impact when using sub-apps instead of nested Router? I think there shouldn't be as app delegates all the requests to the top-level router anyway.

[snovak7]

Well from scoping perspective... in version 3 this was great, because there was no Router, with addition to router, app -> router -> response; router should/could get a locals attribute that would upgrade locals to the response object and possible views that would use them. You can do this manually as @akesser pointed out.

[Fishrock123]

Also with @dougwilson on this -- the functionality is probably better suited in it's own sub-module somehow.