Often you don't just want random text in a field. For example in a blog type, the text field should be a mix of different templates that include different sizes and types of posts. Templates and template variables let you construct these text templates creatively and even context based by using field variables.

Field Variables

You can include other fields from the same entry into a string with template variables. Here's an example:

{
    "users": [
        { "id": 1, "firstname": "Mike", "slogan": "Hi, I'm {{field.firstname}}. How can I help you?" },
        { "id": 5, "firstname": "Lucy", "slogan": "Visit my homepage: www.{{field.firstname|lower}}.com" }
    ]
}

As soon as Blowson detects template variables in a string, it will repeat those template string in all entries. You will not have random text anymore.

The result will be something like this:

{
    "users": [
        { "id": 1, "firstname": "Mike", "slogan": "Hi, I'm Mike. How can I help you?" },
        { "id": 2, "firstname": "Tom", "slogan": "Hi, I'm Tom. How can I help you?" },
        { "id": 3, "firstname": "Jeff", "slogan": "Visit my homepage: www.jeff.com" },
        { "id": 4, "firstname": "Kim", "slogan": "Hi, I'm Kim. How can I help you?" },
        { "id": 5, "firstname": "Lucy", "slogan": "Visit my homepage: www.lucy.com" }
    ]
}

Relationship Fields

What makes field variables really powerful is that fields can be referenced from a relationship. So for example if you have a type user and a type message (anonymous message to the user), than you can use a field from the user in the message to create messages that fit the context. Something like:

{
    "users": [
        { "id": 1, "firstname": "Mike" },
        { "id": 2, "firstname": "Alex" },
        { "id": 5, "firstname": "Lucy" }
    ],
    "messages": [
        { "id": 1, "user_id": 1, "text": "Hi {{field.user.firstname}}, well done. Congrats!" },
        { "id": 2, "user_id": 2, "text": "Hi {{field.user.firstname}}, well done. Congrats!" },
        { "id": 25, "user_id": 5, "text": "Hello {{field.user.firstname}}, don't stop what you're doing!" }
    ]
}

Connected Entries

Another way to use relationships to your advantage, is to use the connected variable type. So for example if you have a comments type and a posts type and comments point to posts, you can get the count of comments on each post like this:

{
    "posts": [
        { "id": 1, "text": "Bla ...", "commentCount": "{{connected.comments|count}}" },
        { "id": 2, "text": "Bla ...", "commentCount": "{{connected.comments|count}}" },
        { "id": 50, "text": "Bla ...", "commentCount": "{{connected.comments|count}}" }
    ],
    "comments": [
        { "id": 1, "post_id": 1, "text": "Some text ..." },
        { "id": 2, "post_id": 2, "text": "Some text ..." },
        { "id": 200, "post_id": 50, "text": "Some text ..." }
    ]
}

By using connected, you always get an array back. If you don't use a filter, the array entries will be joined like this: val1, val2 and val3. You can use all the array filters to collapse the array to a single value, for example: {{connected.flights.score|max}}

Filters

The available filters are:

The date filter uses the date-fns library to format your dates. For example if you want to only show the year of a date field created, do it like this: {{field.created|date:YYYY}}

Similar to the date filter, the number filter uses the Numeral.js library. An example: would result in something like 1st (with id = 1).

You can combine multiple filters, so for example you can do something like {{word.noun|capitalize}} {{word.noun|capitalize|optional}} {{number|optional}} to generate a product names that is either one word, one word with a number, two words or two words with a number, all words capitalized.

Defaults

Additionally you can use the ? option to define a default value, in case the field you're referencing is optional. This could look like this:

{
    "files": [
        { "id": 1, "width": 250, "height": 100, "url": "https://imgplaceholder.com/{{field.width?250}}x{{field.height?100}}" },
        { "id": 2, "width": 500, "height": 250, "url": "https://imgplaceholder.com/{{field.width?500}}x{{field.height?250}}" },
        { "id": 5, "url": "https://imgplaceholder.com/{{field.width?400}}x{{field.height?200}}" }
    ]
}

Random Variable

Sometimes you need to be able to choose a random variable. You can do this with the or operator: ||. Here's an example from the kitchensink: {{field.var3||field.var4|upper||field.var10|avg}}. This will randomly choose either field var3, field var4 in all uppercase or the average of all field var10s.

Faker.js API Methods

Additionally to all of the above features, you have access to all Faker.js (three parts) and Chance.js (two parts) methods with the fake key. Just a few examples: {{fake.lorem.sentence}}, {{fake.system.fileName}}, {{fake.finance.transactionType}}, {{fake.dollar}}, {{fake.month}}

Regex Patterns

A currently experimental feature is the support for Regex based patterns to generate content. Blowson uses the amazing RandExp library to generate content based on Regex patterns. Here's an example: {{/(sun|mon|tue|wednes|thurs|fri|satur)day/}}. As closing curly braces can't be used inside the template curly braces, we are using a special bold unicode closing curly brace inside the Regexes, an example: {{/Lo{2,10❵l/||/Fe{2,10❵t/}}. This will probably change in a future release however, as it's quite a hack!

Sentence Construction

And finally, to enable you to create semi random sentences, you can use {{word.noun}}, {{word.a_noun}}, {{word.nouns}}, {{word.adjective}}, {{word.an_adjective}} and {{number}} to creatively construct them. (You can insert whole sentences and paragraphs if you want: )