ryland 0.7.0

A simple static site generation library

Ryland

A simple static site generation library

Current Features

• use of Jinja2 templates
• markdown formatting filter
• pull data directly from JSON or YAML files within templates
• copy static files and directory trees (for stylesheets, scripts, fonts, images)
• cache-busting with hashes

History

I've generally found most static site generators to either be far too complex for my needs or too restricted to just blogs or similar so, over the years, I've generated many static sites with lightweight, bespoke Python code and hosted them on GitHub pages. However, I've ended up repeating myself a lot so I'm now cleaning it all up and generalizing my prior work as this library.

Changelog

0.1.0

• initial release

0.2.0

• added the data function with support for JSON

0.3.0

• changed dist to output
• changed calc_hash to add_hash
• support just passing in __file__ and assuming output_dir and template_dir
• added an example

0.4.0

• clear_output will create the directory if it doesn't exist
• added another example

0.5.0

• added strftime filter
• include markdown-full-yaml-metadata
• added a third example

0.6.0

• removed strftime filter (can just use .strftime instead)

0.7.0

• data function now supports YAML
• added two examples of the data function

Example Usage

pip install ryland (or equivalent).

The write a build script of the following form:

from ryland import Ryland

ROOT_DIR = Path(__file__).parent.parent
OUTPUT_DIR = ROOT_DIR / "output"
PANTRY_DIR = ROOT_DIR / "pantry"
TEMPLATE_DIR = ROOT_DIR / "templates"

ryland = Ryland(output_dir=OUTPUT_DIR, template_dir=TEMPLATE_DIR)

ryland.clear_output()
ryland.copy_to_output(PANTRY_DIR / "style.css")
ryland.add_hash("style.css")

ryland.render_template("404.html", "404.html")
ryland.render_template("about_us.html", "about-us/index.html")

# construct context variables

ryland.render_template("homepage.html", "index.html", {
    # context variables
})

Also see examples/ in this repo.

Cache-Busting Hashes

The add_hash makes it possible to do

<link rel="stylesheet" href="/style.css?{{ HASHES['style.css'] }}">

in the templates to bust the browser cache when a change is made to a stylesheet, script, etc.

markdown Filter

To render a markdown context variable:

{{ content | markdown }}

Data Function

To pull data directly from a JSON or YAML file in a template:

<div>
  <h2>Latest News</h2>

  {% for news_item in data("news_list.json")[:3] %}
    <div>
      <div class="news-dateline">{{ news_item.dateline }}</div>
      <p>{{ news_item.content }}</p>
    </div>
  {% endfor %}
</div>

Sites Currently Using Ryland

• https://projectamaze.com
• https://digitaltolkien.com
• https://jktauber.com

Roadmap

In no particular order:

• move over other sites to use Ryland
• incorporate more common elements that emerge
• improve error handling
• produce a Ryland-generated website for Ryland
• document how to automatically build with GitHub actions
• write up a cookbook
• add a command-line tool for starting a Ryland-based site

Because Ryland is a library, a lot of missing features can just be implemented by the site developer. However, if three or more sites duplicate effort in their build script, I'll consider at least adding helper code to Ryland.

Once five independent people are running sites built with Ryland, I will declare 1.0.0.