Render It

Render any JavaScript content to create static sites ready for SEO.

$ yarn add --dev render-it

$ npm install --save-dev render-it

Render it uses Headless Chrome to render the JavaScript content and JSDOM to replace the content in the original HTML document.

Motivation

If you are here, you probably have a problem like this:

Your server is returning a HTML structure without the content that JavaScript renders.

<!-- DOCUMENT HTML -->
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <body>
    <div>Content from the server</div>
    
    <div id='root'></div> <!-- placeholder for JavaScript to render content -->
  </body>
</html>

But you want to return the document HTML with the content (usually for SEO and SMO).

<!-- DOCUMENT HTML -->
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <body>
    <div>Content from the server</div>
    
    <div id='root'>Content from the client</div>
  </body>
</html>

Render It allows you to generate all the static pages WITH the content. It returns the same HTML structure from the server but with the JavaScript content inside the placeholder.

Why is it awesome?

Zero config required in the server side.
Zero config required in the client side.
Works with any server language.
Works with any JavaScript library or framework. (like React, VueJS, Angular)
Just render what you need.
Does not depend on Webpack.
Allows a production site URL to generate the static pages.

Usage

Create a Node task to generate the static pages.

// render-it.js

const renderIt = require('render-it')

const config = {
  url: 'http://localhost:3000',
  paths: ['/', '/about', '/contact'],
  selector: '#root',
  outputFolder: 'dist'
}

renderIt(config) 

Then you can run it with: node ./render-it.js

So, you can use this task in any environment with Node.

Conguration

Option	Default	Description
url	none	URL of the site to crawl. If this parameter isn’t present, render-it will run it’s own static server using the output folder.
outputFolder	output	Path of the folder to store the generated static pages
paths	[’/’]	Url pathnames to render
selector	#root	Selector to render the JavaScript content
puppeteerConfig	`{ headless: true }`	Force to use another options for puppeteer

Roadmap

Feature	Status
CLI	In progress
Render meta tags	Pending
Auto crawling	Pending
Wait to render	Pending
Auto render	Pending
Support multiple selectors	Pending