Creating DSL

The existing Fluent API offers a clear and easy-to-understand way to describe a document's structure. When working on the document, you may find that many places use similar styles, for instances borders or backgrounds. It is especially common when you keep the document consistent. To make future adjustments easier, you can reuse the styling code by extracting it into separate extension methods. This way, you can assign a meaningful name to documents structure without increasing code complexity.

In the example below, we will create a simple table where label cells have a grey background, and value cells have a white background. First, let's create proper extension methods:

static class SimpleExtension
{
    private static IContainer Cell(this IContainer container, bool dark)
    {
        return container
            .Border(1)
            .Background(dark ? Colors.Grey.Lighten2 : Colors.White)
            .Padding(10);
    }
    
    // displays only text label
    public static void LabelCell(this IContainer container, string text) => container.Cell(true).Text(text).Medium();
    
    // allows to inject any type of content, e.g. image
    public static IContainer ValueCell(this IContainer container) => container.Cell(false);
}

static class SimpleExtension
{
    private static IContainer Cell(this IContainer container, bool dark)
    {
        return container
            .Border(1)
            .Background(dark ? Colors.Grey.Lighten2 : Colors.White)
            .Padding(10);
    }
    
    // displays only text label
    public static void LabelCell(this IContainer container, string text) => container.Cell(true).Text(text).Medium();
    
    // allows to inject any type of content, e.g. image
    public static IContainer ValueCell(this IContainer container) => container.Cell(false);
}

Now, you can easily use newly created DSL language to build the table:

.Grid(grid =>
{
    grid.Columns(10);
    
    for(var i=1; i<=4; i++)
    {
        grid.Item(2).LabelCell(Placeholders.Label());
        grid.Item(3).ValueCell().Image(Placeholders.Image(200, 150));
    }
});

.Grid(grid =>
{
    grid.Columns(10);
    
    for(var i=1; i<=4; i++)
    {
        grid.Item(2).LabelCell(Placeholders.Label());
        grid.Item(3).ValueCell().Image(Placeholders.Image(200, 150));
    }
});

This example produces the following output:

example

TIP

Please note that this example shows only the concept of using extension methods to build custom API elements. Using this approach you can build and reuse more complex structures. For example, extension methods can expect arguments.

Creating DSL #

Creating DSL