cpfr-rattlesnake 1.0.3

A simple static-site generator for Python3, using markdown and the Jinja2 templating engine

Rattlesnake Static Site Generator

Rattlesnake is a static website generator. It is written in the Python programming language and utilizes the Jinja templating engine, pySCSS for SCSS support, as well as the pyYaml library for parsing config files.

See https://pac4.gitlab.io/rattlesnake/ for more information.

Usage

Rattlesnake needs the following things:

• A config.yml file that contains configuration properties and variables for the site rendering
• A src folder that contains the source files for the website.
• It generates a build directory that will contain the ready-to-deploy website after running the build script.

The build follows the convention that files starting with an underscore (e.g. _header.html) are not built as pages, but used as template files via Jinja. All HTML files not starting with an underscore will be converted into pages. Files with the name index.html will keep their relative path. However, all other HTML files will be moved into a directory with the same name as the original file (without extension) and stored as an index.html inside that folder. This means that a file ./src/about.html will be processed into a file ./build/about/index.html. This is due to the way the browser and the web server handle paths. This creates nicer looking URLs (https://youwebsite.org/about instead of https://youwebsite.org/about.html).

Command-Line Interface

usage: rattlesnake [-h] [-w] [-o OUTPUT_DIR] [-p PORT] [-c CONFIG_FILE] [-a ADDITIONAL_CONFIG] [source_dir]

This tool converts your markdown text and HTML into a static website.

positional arguments:
  source_dir

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -w, --watch
  -o OUTPUT_DIR, --output-dir OUTPUT_DIR
  -p PORT, --port PORT
  -c CONFIG_FILE, --config-file CONFIG_FILE
  -a ADDITIONAL_CONFIG, --additional-config ADDITIONAL_CONFIG

• By default, ./src is used as the input directory. This can be changed by specifying a different path as the first argument.
• By default, ./build is used as the output directory. This can be changed by specifying a different path using the --output-dir option.
• By default, ./config.yml is used as the config file for parameters and template variables. This can be changed by specifying a different file path using the --config-file option.
• The --watch option keeps the script running after the build process and watches the source directory for file changes. Further, it starts an HTTP server that serves the built website.
• The --port option allows the user to specify a port if the --watch flag is given. If no custom port is provided, port 8000 is used.
• The --additional-config option can be used in order to load an additional config yaml file that supplement or overrides the default values. This can be useful for different deployment targets.

Version History

• 1.0.3: introducing meta-variables for page paths
  • _target_path points to the path of the page relative to the website's base url
  • _source_path points to the path of the source file relative to the input directory
• 1.0.2: Bugfixes
  • directories starting with an underscore are also skipped (not just files)
  • adding date formatting filter to Jinja parser ({{ some_date | format_date("%d.%m.%Y") }})
• 1.0.0: Initial Implementation