html5 templates,HTML Templates JavaScript polyfills

Xotic750 offered a solid polyfill that works by mutating HTML elements — but it will fail if any new templates are later added to the DOM, and mutation is increasingly discouraged (where avoidable).

Instead, I recommend introducing the "polyfill" behaviour at the point where you use the templates. Add this function to your JS:

function templateContent(template) {

if("content" in document.createElement("template")) {

return document.importNode(template.content, true);

} else {

var fragment = document.createDocumentFragment();

var children = template.childNodes;

for (i = 0; i < children.length; i++) {

fragment.appendChild(children[i].cloneNode(true));

}

return fragment;

}

}

Call the function with a reference to your template element. It'll extract the content, and return a documentFragment that you can then attach to another element (or do whatever else you might want to do with the template content). Like this:

var template = document.querySelector("template#my-template");

var content = templateContent(template);

someElm.appendChild(content);

Now, the other answer didn't mention it, but you probably want some CSS to hide the element.

template { display: none; }

Here's a CodePen that puts it all together.

Now, this will work correctly in browsers that natively support the element, and in those that don't. Similar to the other answer, it's not a perfect polyfill, since it doesn't render templates inert (that'd be complex, slow, and error-prone). But it works well enough for me to use in production.

Leave a comment if you've got questions or issues, and I'll revise accordingly.