Node.js + Express + Handlebars.js + partial views

I know this had been asked a long time ago, but no one has shown an answer in this post. So I will do so here. To ensure everyone is on the same page, I will be verbose in my answer. I apologize in advance if it seems overly simplistic.

In your server.js file (or app.js, wherever you defined handlebars as your view engine). Depending on what you are using as your npm package, such as hbs or express-handlebars etc. it may look different, but similar to this. Note: I'm using express-handlebars in this example.

file: server.js

...
var express     = require( 'express'),
    hbs         = require( 'express-handlebars' ),
    app         = express();
...

app.engine( 'hbs', hbs( { 
  extname: 'hbs', 
  defaultLayout: 'main', 
  layoutsDir: __dirname + '/views/layouts/',
  partialsDir: __dirname + '/views/partials/'
} ) );

app.set( 'view engine', 'hbs' );

...

and your file structure should look something like this:

| /views/   
|--- /layouts/
|----- main.hbs
|--- /partials/
|----- header.hbs
|----- footer.hbs
|----- ... etc.
|--- index.hbs
| server.js

And your main.hbs file should look like this:

file: main.hbs

...
{{> header }}
...
<span> various other stuff </span>
...
{{> footer }}

To denote a partial you use this syntax: {{> partialsNames }}.

I'm currently using ericf's implementation of "handlebars-express", and find it to be excellent:

https://github.com/ericf/express3-handlebars

The key thing to remember is that on express, as opposed to the within the browser, handlebars gets activated during the view render phase. The client code will end up being just plain HTML, as if you'd used mustache within a PHP context.

Using https://www.npmjs.org/package/hbs | https://github.com/donpark/hbs

Let's assume you have:

+ views
  - index.hbs
  + partials
    - footer.hbs

You need to register which folder contains your partials:

hbs.registerPartials(__dirname + '/views/partials');

The partials will have the exact name that the file has. You can also register specific names for your partials by using:

hbs.registerPartial('myFooter', fs.readFileSync(__dirname + '/views/partials/footer.hbs', 'utf8'));

Then you access it like this:

First example: {{> footer }} 
Second example: {{> myFooter }}

Full example here: https://github.com/donpark/hbs/tree/master/examples/partial