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https://github.com/andrewpillar/jrnl

A simple static site generator
https://github.com/andrewpillar/jrnl

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A simple static site generator

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README 

        
# jrnl



jrnl is a simple static site generator. It takes posts and pages written in

Markdown, transforms them to HTML, and copies those HTML files over to a

remote. Unlike most other static site generators jrnl does not serve the

content it generates.



* [Quick start](#quick-start)

* [Initializing jrnl](#initializing-jrnl)

* [Directory structure](#directory-structure)

* [Pages and posts](#pages-and-posts)

* [Categories](#categories)

* [Front matter](#front-matter)

* [Layouts](#layouts)

* [Indexing](#indexing)

* [Themes](#themes)

* [Remote](#remote)

* [Publishing](#publishing)

* [Atom and RSS feeds](#atom-and-rss-feeds)



## Quick start



First clone the repository and run the `make.sh` script to build jrnl.



    $ git clone https://github.com/andrewpillar/jrnl

    $ cd jrnl && ./make.sh



This will produced a `jrnl` binary in the `bin` directory. Copy this file into

your `$PATH`,



    $ cp bin/jrnl ~/go/bin



Once installed you can create a new jrnl by running `jrnl init`.



    $ jrnl init my-blog



this will initialize everything you need within the `my-blog` directory. If you

do not pass an argument to this command then the jrnl will be initialized in the

current directory.



We can now change into the new directory and start creating posts with the

`jrnl post` command.



    $ jrnl post "Introducing jrnl"



this will cause jrnl to drop you into a text editor, as specified via `$EDITOR`

for editing the newly created post. You will notice at the top of the post is a

block of YAML with a handful of attributes. This is called front matter, and

contains meta-data about the post. For now let's set the `layout` attribute to

`post`, and write up the post's content.



    ---

    title: Introducing jrnl

    layout: post

    createdAt: 2001-01-02T15:04

    updatedAt: 2001-01-02T15:04

    ---

    jrnl is a simple static site generator.



Now that we have written up our post the next thing we need to do is created

a layout for our post. Above we specified the layout for our post via the

`layout` property in the front matter. Now we need to create that layout file

for jrnl to use during publishing. All layout files in jrnl are stored in the

`_layouts` directory. So let's create a layout file, here's what one could look

like:



    

    

        

            

            {{.Site.Title}}

        

        

            
{{.Post.Title}}


            
{{.Post.Body}}


        

    



Nothing too specield here, just some basic HTML. Layout files in jrnl utilize

Go's [text/template](https://golang.org/pkg/text/template) library for

templating. As you can see we are placing the post's title and body into the

HTML.



So we have a post and a layout file. Next let's set a title for our jrnl. We

can do this by running `jrnl config` and by specifying the `site.title` key.



    $ jrnl config site.title "My Blog"



Now, before we can publish our jrnl we need to set a remot. A remote can either

be a local filesystem path, or a remote SCP URL for copying the HTML files to.

To keep things simple lets just use a local filesystem path for now.



    $ jrnl config site.remote /tmp/blog-remote

    $ jrnl publish



If we peform an `ls` on the `/tmp/blog-remote` path we specified, we should see

the directory populated with some files generated from jrnl.



    $ ls /tmp/blog-remote

    2006 assets



And there is our site. Not much right now, just and empty `assets` directory and

a path pointing to our published post which we can now view in a browser.



    $ firefox 2006/01/02/introducing-jrnl/index.html



## Initializing jrnl



jrnl can be initialized by running `jrnl init`. If this command is provided an

argument then jrnl will be initialized in the given directory. Otherwise jrnl is

initialized in the current directory.



    $ jrnl init my-blog



## Directory structure



A jrnl is structured like so,



    ├── _data

    ├── _layouts

    ├── _pages

    ├── _posts

    ├── _site

    |   └── assets

    ├── _themes

    └── jrnl.toml



* `_data` - Stores binary data about the pages and posts.

* `_layouts` - Stores templates used for generating pages and posts.

* `_pages` - Stores the Markdown files for the pages.

* `_posts` - Stores the Markdown files for the posts.

* `_site` - Stores the final generated HTML files.

* `_site/assets` - Stores the static assets for the site, such as CSS, JS, and

any images.

* `_themes` - Stores the jrnl themes.

* `jrnl.toml` - The configuration file for jrnl.



## Pages and posts



jrnl has two types of content, pages and posts. A page is a simple content

type, it is made up of a title, a layout, and a body. Pages are created with

the `jrnl page` comman. This takes the title of the page to be created as its

only argument.



    $ jrnl page About



Posts are similar to pages in how they are created. The main different is that

posts can be categorized, and contain meta-data about when that post was

created, and updated.



    $ jrnl post "Introducing jrnl"



Whenever a page or post is created, or edited jrnl will open up the source

Markdown f ile in the editor that you have set via the `$EDITOR` environment

variable. Upon creation of a new page or post the source Markdown file will be

pre-populated with some [front matter](#front-matter) whcih will store some

meta-data about the page or post.



All of the posts and pages that have been created can be viewed with the

`jrnl ls` command.



    $ jrnl ls

    about

    introducing-jrnl



These IDs can be passed to `jrnl edit` or `jrnl rm` for modification or removal

respectively.



## Categories



jrnl allows for posts to be stored in categories, and sub-categories. To add a

post to a category simply pass the `-c` flag to the `jrnl post` command,



    $ jrnl post -c "TV Shows / The Leftovers" "Penguin One, Us Zero"



this will store the Markdown file in a sub-directory beneath the `_posts`

directory.



    ├── _posts

    |   └── tv-shows

    |       └── the-leftovers

    |           └── penguin-one-us-zero.md



Under the hood categories are nothing more than additional directories to store

posts in.



## Front matter



Front matter is a block of YAML that sits at the top of each page or post in the

Markdown source file. It contains meta-data about the pieve of content being

modified. The front matter can vary between pages and posts in regards to what

it strores, but both types of content will have a `title` and `layout` property.



* `title` (both) - The title of the page or post.

* `layout` (both) - The layout of the page or post.

* `createdAt` (post) - The time the post was created.

* `updatedAt` (post) - The time the post was updated.



## Layouts



Layouts are text files that define how a page or post will look once published.

jrnl uses Go's [text/template](https://golang.org/pkg/text/template) library for

templating. When jrnl has been initialized the `_layouts` directory will be

empty, it will be up to you to create the necessary layout files. Below is an

example layout file for a post:



    

    

        

            

            {{.Site.Title}}

        

        {{.Post.Body}}

    



All layout files will have access to the `.Site` value. This value allows for

retrieving the title, authorship, categories, and pages in the jrnl.



    


    

    
    

            {{range $i, $c := .Site.Categories}}

                
  • {{$c.Name}}
    • 

            {{end}}

        



The layout used by a page will be passed the `.Page` value, and the layout used

by a post will be passed the `.Post` value.



You will also have access to the `partial` function within a layout file. This

allows you to create re-usable parts of a layout. The partial function takes

the name of the layout file to include followed by the data to passthrough.



    {{partial "categories" .Site.Categories}}



## Indexing



jrnl can generate an `index.html` file at the root of the `_site` directory

that will list all of the posts created. One can also be created for each

category that will list each of the category's posts.



To have these index files created, simply specify an index layout file to use

in the `_layouts` directory. Use `index` for the `_site/index.html` file, and

`category-index` for a category specific `index.html` file.



## Themes



Themes in jrnl are just a tarball of the `_layouts` directory, and the

`_site/assets` directory. The current theme being used is stored in the

`jrnl.toml` configuration file. You can check to see if a theme is in use by

running `jrnl theme`.



    $ jrnl theme



Creating or saving a theme is done with `jrnl theme save`. If no argument is

given then it will overwrite the current theme in use, otherwise it will create

a new theme with the given name.



Themes can be set by running the `jrnl theme use` command, and passing it the

name of the theme you wish to use.



All available themes can be listed with `jrnl theme ls`, and themes can be

deleted with `jrnl theme rm`.



## Remote



Each jrnl has a remote. A remote is where the contents of the `_site` directory

is copied to. This can either be a location on disk, or an SCP URL. The remote

can be set via `jrnl config site.remote` and is stored in the `jrnl.toml` file.



    $ jrnl config site.remote [email protected]:/var/www/andrewpillar.com



## Publishing



To publish a jrnl simply run `jrnl publish`. This will transform all of the

modified Markdown pages and posts into HTML, and generate the necessary

`index.html` files before copying them to the remote.



    $ jrnl publish



Drafts can be published by setting the `-d` flag. This will only produce the

HTML files instead of copying them over.



Each page and post that is published will be written to the `_data/hash` file.

This is used to determine which pages and posts should be copied to the remote

based on whether they have been modified.



## Atom and RSS feeds



Atom and RSS feeds can be generated by passing the `-a` and `-r` flags to the

`jrnl publish` command. Each of these flags will take a path to the file where

you would like the feed to be written,



    $ jrnl publish -a _site/atom.xml -r _site/rss.xml