Proxima: A Simple Templating Markup Language

Proxima is a markup language that transpiles Proxima source code into HTML. It offers clearer syntax instead of plain HTML/CSS coding.

Important: Proxima is still under development, so there might be breaking changes between releases until v1.0.0 is out.

Syntax

The syntax is simple, consisting only of five special characters:

• @ defines a tag.
• # is used for comments.
• { and } encloses tag arguments.
• \ is used to escape a character.

Components

The main feature of Proxima is that you can create your own components. By default, Proxima looks for files under a components directory in the root of your project.

HTML Components

You can create HTML components by placing .html files anywhere under the components' directory.

<!-- ./components/spacer.html -->

<div style="heigh: 20px;"></div>

In your Proxima file, you can use the component.

# ./index.prox

@spacer

If you want to add arguments, every @ symbol inside the file will be replaced by the arguments in appearance order.

<!-- ./components/smol-text.html -->
<div style="font-size: 10px;">@</div>

And in your Proxima file:

# ./index.prox

@smol-text{so basically im very smol}

Python Components

Components can also be written in Python. The Python file should be named after the component's name, and the function must be called function.

# ./components/list.py

def function(*items: tuple[str]) -> str:
    value: str = "<ul>"
    for item in items:
        value += f"<li>{item}</li>"
    value += "</ul>"

    return value

# ./index.prox

@list{
This is the first sentence
}{
This is the second sentence
}{
This is the third sentence
}

Adding elements to the head of the document

Proxima will auto-detect all elements that should be placed in the head of the document if they are placed on top of the Proxima document (via a component or embedded HTML).

Usage

Proxima has four commands available:

• generate [flags] [arguments]
  • generates the HTML file. The arguments can be either files or directories
  • the -c flag lets you specify the path to the components' directory. By default, the directory is set to ./components
  • the -r flag tells the compiler to recursively search for .prox files in the specified directory and subdirectories
• watch [flags] [file]
  • watches the Proxima file for changes and auto-generates the HTML file
  • the -c flag lets you specify the path to the components' directory. By default, the directory is set to ./components
• version
  • prints the current version
• help
  • prints the Proxima CLI documentation

Installation

Download the Proxima binary for your machine from the Releases Page.

Then, rename it to proxima:

mv proxima-<ARCH> proxima

Give it execution privileges:

chmod +x proxima

And move it to the system's binaries:

mv proxima /usr/local/bin/