$.tmpl('<b>foo</b>',{}); this works, it produces a <b> element

However this does not work: $('<b>foo</b>').tmpl({});

This produces a text node in FF.

Most examples I seen use parented DOM elements, and refer to them by id, but it doesn't seem to work with DOM fragments.

Description: Take the first element in the matched set and render its content as a template, using the specified data.

From this I assume that I is supposed to work with jQuery generated DOM fragments.

templating plugin doesn't encode '&' character. When I have following text in data object: '&nbsp;', templating plug-in renders whitespace instead of this string.

jquery.tmpl.js contains following comment in 'encode' function: Do HTML encoding replacing < > & and ' and " by corresponding entities. But no manipulation with '&' character exists: return ("" + text).split("<").join("&lt;").split(">").join("&gt;").split('"').join("&#34;").split("'").join("&#39;");

For an empty object: {},

Templates that Work:

<div id="{{if something}}{{else}}divid{{/if}}"></div>
{{if something}}<div>{{else}}<div id="divid">{{/if}}</div>

Template that does not work (when it should):

<div {{if something}}{{else}}id="divid"{{/if}}></div>