Render basic HTML view?
You can have jade include a plain HTML page:
in views/index.jade
include plain.html
in views/plain.html
<!DOCTYPE html>
...
and app.js can still just render jade:
res.render(index)
From the Express.js Guide: View Rendering
View filenames take the form
Express.ENGINE, whereENGINEis the name of the module that will be required. For example the viewlayout.ejswill tell the view system torequire('ejs'), the module being loaded must export the methodexports.render(str, options)to comply with Express, howeverapp.register()can be used to map engines to file extensions, so that for examplefoo.htmlcan be rendered by jade.
So either you create your own simple renderer or you just use jade:
app.register('.html', require('jade'));
More about app.register.
Note that in Express 3, this method is renamed
app.engine
Many of these answers are out of date.
Using express 3.0.0 and 3.1.0, the following works:
app.set('views', __dirname + '/views');
app.engine('html', require('ejs').renderFile);
See the comments below for alternative syntax and caveats for express 3.4+:
app.set('view engine', 'ejs');
Then you can do something like:
app.get('/about', function (req, res)
{
res.render('about.html');
});
This assumes you have your views in the views subfolder, and that you have installed the ejs node module. If not, run the following on a Node console:
npm install ejs --save