Why Use Fortitude?

There is exactly one overwhelming reason to use Fortitude:

It allows you to write vastly better-factored views.

With Fortitude, you can turn this:

<div class="container main outermost" id="main-container">
  <div class="row primary">
    <div class="col-sm-7">
      <figure class="source">
        <figcaption>example_code_1.rb</figcaption>
        <pre class="ruby">
[ 1, 2, 3 ].map { |x| x * 2 } # =&gt; [ 2, 4, 6 ]
</pre>
      </figure>

      <%= render :partial => '/shared/buttons/icon_button', :locals => {
        :target => conditional_refresh_url(:user => @user),
        :icon_name => 'refresh',
        :tooltip_html => "<p>Refresh this page</p>"
      } %>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

Into this:

simple_page {
  ruby "example_code_1.rb", "[ 1, 2, 3 ].map { |x| x * 2 } # => [ 2, 4, 6 ]"

  icon_button(:refresh, conditional_refresh_url(:user => @user)) {
    p "Refresh this page"
  }
}

…and that’s just the beginning. With Fortitude, you can refactor your views into the methods that are right for your application. This means:

• You’ll be able to enhance, modify, and debug views much faster.
• You’ll build new views faster — and this pace will accelerate as your codebase grows, not decelerate.
• You’ll have fewer bugs in your views, and spend less time debugging them.
• You’ll enjoy building views much more.

Fortitude expresses your views using a Ruby DSL that models HTML; this allows you to bring all the power of Ruby to bear on your views. The difference this makes in the long run is enormous.

However, beyond the code-factoring abilities of Fortitude, it also offers a number of other very powerful features that you’ll love in a templating engine:

• Guaranteed Well-Formed HTML: Fortitude’s syntax makes it literally impossible to forget to close a tag, forget an end tag, or type an invalid tag name. You’ll know for a fact that your HTML means what you thought it meant.
• HTML Rule Enforcement: Fortitude knows the rules of HTML — for example, you can’t nest a <div> inside a <p> — and, if you want, can enforce them for you. No more invalid markup!
• id Uniqueness Enforcement: Fortitude can let you know if you re-use the same DOM ID on a page accidentally. No more difficult debugging sessions because your JavaScript is attaching to the wrong element!
• Automatic View Commenting: Ever gotten frustrated trying to figure out which $*@($ partial renders this bit of HTML I need to change? Fortitude can automatically produce comments (typically in development mode) before and after every single partial, telling you exactly which partial is being rendered, and the values of all the variables passed into it. This can save you a ton of time.
• Incredibly Fast: Fortitude is the single fastest general-purpose templating engine available for Ruby or Rails. It can render pages as complex as anything you’ll see on the Web today in a few dozen milliseconds at most — competing engines take from twice to five times as long.

It’s easiest to explain by example. Follow the link below, and you’ll see seven examples of using Fortitude to refactor common view problems into clear, concise, powerful code.