Base Templates

    Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

    Most applications use a shared layout with a doctype, <head>, and <body>. In Kita Html, layouts are regular components that accept children and slot props.

    Basic layout

    import type { PropsWithChildren } from '@kitajs/html'

function Layout({ title, children }: PropsWithChildren<{ title?: string }>) {
  return (
    <>
      {'<!doctype html>'}
      <html lang="en">
        <head>
          <meta charset="UTF-8" />
          <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
          <title>{title || 'My App'}</title>
        </head>
        <body>{children}</body>
      </html>
    </>
  )
}

    The {'<!doctype html>'} string is concatenated before the <html> tag. JSX cannot express a doctype natively, so it is inserted as a string expression.

    Slot props

    For layouts with multiple content regions, use additional props for each slot.

    function Layout(
  props: PropsWithChildren<{
    title?: string
    head?: JSX.Element
    footer?: JSX.Element
  }>
) {
  return (
    <>
      {'<!doctype html>'}
      <html lang="en">
        <head>
          <meta charset="UTF-8" />
          <title>{props.title || 'My App'}</title>
          {props.head}
        </head>
        <body>
          {props.children}
          {props.footer}
        </body>
      </html>
    </>
  )
}

const page = (
  <Layout
    title="Home"
    head={
      <>
        <link rel="stylesheet" href="/style.css" />
        <script src="/app.js" />
      </>
    }
    footer={<footer>Copyright 2024</footer>}
  >
    <main>Page content</main>
  </Layout>
)

    Framework auto-doctype

    When using @kitajs/fastify-html-plugin or @kitajs/express-html-plugin, the plugin automatically prepends <!doctype html> to responses that start with an <html> tag. This means you can omit the manual {'<!doctype html>'} string in your layout when using either integration.