Introduction: The Four Levels of Fluid Development

To say you’re “working with” or “developing with” Fluid could mean a number of different things, and your role will guide what chapters in this guide apply to you.

In increasing level of complexity:

1. Template Development

This means you’re using the Liquid syntax to develop output – you’re not doing any C# development. (Usually, you’re a front-end developer using Fluid to generate HTML.)

Chapters that apply:

• Definitions
• Filters
• The first half of Conditionals and Operators
• Looping
• Arrays
• The first half of Checking for Values: True and Falsey
• Whitespace Control

And all the filter references:

• Array Filters
• Number Filters
• String Filters
• Miscellaneous Filters

2. C# Enablement

This means you’re a C# developer who has implemented Fluid into a C# project. You are responsible for the basic template activation and usage of the output.

Chapters that apply:

• Basic Template Execution
• Passing Data into Templates
• Member Access and Controlling Template Data
• Value Convertors
• Value Resolution

3. Liquid Extension

This means you’re a C# developer who is extending Fluid to add additional functionality to the Liquid syntax through existing language constructs (filters, tags, blocks, operators, and members).

Chapters that apply:

• Custom Filters
• Custom Tags and Blocks
• The second half of Conditionals and Operators
• The second half of Checking for Values: True and Falsey
• Virtual Members Using GetValue

4. Parser Extension

This means you’re a C# developer who is programming against the underlying Parlot parser framework to add entirely new language constructs.

Resources that apply:

• Custom Parser Tags and Blocks
• The Parlot Library at GitHub
• This draft chapter on Parsers and Parser Combinators (from an upcoming guide on Parlot)