Base templates
The block
keyword allows you to define the outer shell of your pages’ one or more master template(s) and then fill in or override portions as necessary.
Base template lookup order
The base template lookup order closely follows that of the template it applies to (e.g. _default/list.html
).
See Template Lookup Order for details and examples.
Define the base template
The following defines a simple base template at _default/baseof.html
. As a default template, it is the shell from which all your pages will be rendered unless you specify another *baseof.html
closer to the beginning of the lookup order.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>{{ block "title" . }}
<!-- Blocks may include default content. -->
{{ .Site.Title }}
{{ end }}</title>
</head>
<body>
<!-- Code that all your templates share, like a header -->
{{ block "main" . }}
<!-- The part of the page that begins to differ between templates -->
{{ end }}
{{ block "footer" . }}
<!-- More shared code, perhaps a footer but that can be overridden if need be in -->
{{ end }}
</body>
</html>
Override the base template
The default list template will inherit all of the code defined above and can then implement its own "main"
block from:
{{ define "main" }}
<h1>Posts</h1>
{{ range .Pages }}
<article>
<h2>{{ .Title }}</h2>
{{ .Content }}
</article>
{{ end }}
{{ end }}
This replaces the contents of our (basically empty) main
block with something useful for the list template. In this case, we didn’t define a title
block, so the contents from our base template remain unchanged in lists.
Only template comments are allowed outside a block’s define
and end
statements. Avoid placing any other text, including HTML comments, outside these boundaries. Doing so will cause rendering issues, potentially resulting in a blank page. See the example below.
<div>This div element broke your template.</div>
{{ define "main" }}
<h2>{{ .Title }}</h2>
{{ .Content }}
{{ end }}
<!-- An HTML comment will break your template too. -->
The following shows how you can override both the main
and title
block areas from the base template with code unique to your default single template:
{{ define "title" }}
<!-- This will override the default value set in baseof.html; i.e., "{{ .Site.Title }}" in the original example-->
{{ .Title }} – {{ .Site.Title }}
{{ end }}
{{ define "main" }}
<h1>{{ .Title }}</h1>
{{ .Content }}
{{ end }}