= ConditionalTags

The Conditional Tags extension adds <r:if>, <r:unless>, and <r:puts> tags giving
Radiant powerful, generalized condition handling and branching.  There are three
main benefits:

  1. Adds power.  Take Radiant's <r:if_content> tag.  It tests for the existence
     of page parts.  But, with the conditional tags extension, you can test if:

         content['body'] exists?  (just like <r:if_content>)
         content['body'] blank?
         content['body'] matches /radiant is cool/
         parts includes-any ['body', 'other part']

     Or take the <r:if_url> tag.  It can match a url but how do you do matching
     on breadcrumbs?  You can't.  But with conditional tags it's as easy as:

         <r:if cond="breadcrumb matches /your regexp/">

     And how about these conditions:

         children.count gte 5  (greater than or equal to 5)
         created-by is 'Chris Parrish'


  2. Makes the user's life easier.  The observant reader is sure to notice that
     this new syntax adds complexity.  Sure.

     But users no longer have to learn a growing list of unique <r:if_xxx>
     tags just to know what they can and can't test.  And let's not forget the
     myriad of possible attributes that all these disjointed tags offer.

     I'll stick with convention over configuration any day.  Let users learn a
     pattern instead of memorizing disparate rules.  That's easier.


  3. Helps Extension Developers.  Many extensions need conditionals, but:

        * Writing these conditionals can get complicated. Often only the most
          basic comparisons get created -- even when users could use better ones

        * There's a bunch of re-inventing the wheel going on across extensions.
          What ever happened to DRY?

        * Here come more tags.  Did I mention that proliferation of <r:if_xxx>
          and <r:unless_xxx> is bad for the user?  Add enough extensions and it
          can get plain silly.

     Instead, the Conditional Tags Extension offloads this work for you.  We'll
     do the fancy parsing, cast the condition elements into ruby variables,
     perform the comparison and handle the errors.  So, if your extension needs
     to support:

         <r:if cond="harmonious.biscuits == 'sweet'">

     All you need to do is create an evaluator to tell Conditional Tags how
     to evaluate harmonius.biscuits and it all just works. Easy.

The <r:puts> tag also provides several useful features that make it a very handy 
tool when writing conditional html:
  
  * Allows for an optional @if attribute that will output the value stated in the
    @value_for attribute if and only if the condition is true.

  * For simpler scenarios, it is also possible to pass in a @text attribute, that, 
    in conjunction with the @if attribute, will render simple text when the
    condition is true.