README.md - cl-yag - Common Lisp Yet Another website Generator
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README.md (9936B)
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1 # README
2
3
4 ## Introduction
5
6 cl-yag is a lightweight, static site generator that produces
7 **gopher** sites as well as **html** websites. The name 'cl-yag'
8 stands for 'Common Lisp - Yet Another website Generator'. It runs
9 without needing Quicklisp (Common LISP library manager).
10
11
12 ## Showcase
13
14 I am using cl-yag to create and maintain my websites in the
15 world-wide-web (visit: *[Solene's percent]
16 (https://dataswamp.org/~solene/)*) as well as [in gopher-space]
17 (gopher://dataswamp.org/1/~solene/).
18
19
20 ## Requirements
21
22 To use cl-yag you'll need:
23
24 1. A Common Lisp Interpreter
25 - cl-yag's current default is [Steel Bank Common Lisp (SBCL)](http://www.sbcl.org/).
26 - [Embeddable Common Lisp (ECL)](https://common-lisp.net/project/ecl/) will do fine as well.
27 2. A Markdown-to-HTML Converter
28 - cl-yag's current default is [multimarkdown](http://fletcherpenney.net/multimarkdown/).
29
30
31 ## Usage
32
33 Go into your project's directory and type ``make``. You'll find your new website/gopher page in **output/**.
34 If you want to get rid of everything in your **output/** sub directories, type ``make clean``.
35 For further commands: read the Makefile.
36 Read in the following section where to find it.
37
38
39 ## Overview: cl-yag's File Hierarchy
40
41 After cloning the repository, your project's directory should contain at
42 least the following files and folders:
43
44 .
45 |-- LICENSE
46 |-- Makefile
47 |-- README.md
48 |-- data/
49 | |-- 1.md
50 | |-- README.md
51 | `-- articles.lisp
52 |-- generator.lisp
53 |-- output/
54 | |-- gopher/
55 | `-- html/
56 |-- static/
57 | |-- css/style.css
58 | `-- img/
59 `-- templates/
60 |-- article.tpl
61 |-- gopher_head.tpl
62 |-- layout.tpl
63 |-- one-tag.tpl
64 |-- rss-item.tpl
65 `-- rss.tpl
66
67 - **Makefile**
68 - This file exists to simplify the recurring execution of frequently used commands.
69 - **generator.lisp**
70 - This is cl-yag's core library.
71 - **static/**
72 - This directory holds content, that needs to be published without being changed (e.g. style sheets, js-scripts).
73 - If you come from 'non-static CMS'-Country: **static/** holds, what you would put in your **assets/** directory.
74 - **templates/**
75 - The templates in this directory provide the structural skeleton(s) of the web pages and feeds you want to create.
76 - **output/**
77 - cl-yag puts in this directory everything ready to get deployed.
78 - Because cl-yag generates not only HTML, but gopher-compliant pages as well, **output/** **holds two sub directories**.
79 - **gopher/** contains the website for gopher,
80 - **html/** contains the website in HTML.
81
82 And there is the **data/** directory, which is important enough to get a subsubsection of its own.
83
84 ### The data/ Directory
85
86 This directory is crucial for the usage of cl-yag.
87
88 **data/** contains
89
90 - the **articles.lisp** configuration file, which defines important meta-data for posts and pages.
91 - It also holds **${id}.md** files, which are holding your posts' (or pages') content. You can use markdown to write them.
92
93 For more information: Read section 'Configuration'.
94
95
96 ## Configuration
97
98 cl-yag's main configuration file is **data/articles.lisp**.
99 In order to have a running implementation of cl-yag, you have
100 to set most of the values in this file.
101
102 **data/articles.lisp** has two parts:
103
104 1. A variable called *config*. Its values define your web page.
105 2. "posts" declaration with their meta-data
106
107 Values are assigned by placing a string (e.g. ``"foo"``) or a boolean
108 (i.e. ``t`` or ``nil``) behind a keyword (e.g. ``:title``).
109
110
111 ### The *config* Variable
112
113 The *config* variable is used to assign the following values:
114
115 - **:webmaster**
116 - The name of the default(!) author.
117 - ``:webmaster`` gets used, if ``:author`` is omitted. (See below: 'The **articles** variable'.)
118 - **:title**
119 - The title of the web-page
120 - **:description**
121 - This text is used in the *description* field of the atom/rss feed.
122 - **:url**
123 - This needs to be the full(!) URL of your website, including(!) a final slash.
124 - MIND: If the url contains a tilde (~), it needs to get duplicated.
125 - Example: ``https://mydomain/~~user/``
126 - **:rss-item-number**
127 - This holds the number of latest(!) RSS items you want to get published.
128 - **html**
129 - ``t`` to export html website. Set ``nil`` to disable.
130 - **gopher**
131 - ``t`` to export gopher website. Set ``nil`` to disable.
132 - **gopher-path**
133 - This is the full path of the directory to access your gopher hole.
134 - **gopher-server**
135 - Hostname of the gopher server. It needs to be included in each link.
136 - **gopher-port**
137 - tcp port of the gopher server. 70 is the default port. It needs to be included in each link.
138 - **gopher-format**
139 - format of the gopher server. default is the geomyidae format, gophernicus format is commented.
140 - **gopher-index**
141 - name of the gopher menu file. default is index.gph for geomyidae, gophermap file is commented.
142
143
144 ### Posts declarations
145
146 Each post is declared with its meta-data using the function "post".
147 So you need to add a new line for each of your posts.
148
149 Of the following keywords, only ``:author`` and ``:short`` can be omitted.
150
151 - **:author**
152 - The ``:author`` field is used to display the article's author.
153 - If you omit it, the generator will take the name from the ``:webmaster`` field of the *config* variable.
154 - **:id**
155 - The ``:id`` field holds the file name of your post/page.
156 - Example: ``:id "2"`` will load file **data/2.md**. Use text instead of numbers, if you want to.
157 - (See section: 'The **data/** Directory'.)
158 - **:tag**
159 - ``:tag`` field is used to create a "view" containing all articles of the same tag.
160 - MIND: White spaces are used to separate tags and are not allowed in(!) tags.
161 - **:tiny**
162 - The ``:tiny`` field's value is used for displaying a really short description of the posts content on your homepage.
163 - If ``:tiny`` doesn't get a value, the full article gets displayed.
164 - Hint: Use ``:tiny "Read the full article for more information."``, if you don't want to display the full text of an article on your index site.
165 - **:title**
166 - The ``:title`` field's value sets your post's title, its first headline, as well as its entry on the index.html.
167
168
169 ## How-to Create A New Post
170
171 Edit **data/articles.lisp** and add a new list to the *articles* variable:
172
173 (list :title "How do I use cl-yag"
174 :id "2"
175 :date "29 April 2016"
176 :author "Solène"
177 :tiny "Read more about how I use cl-yag."
178 :tag "example help code")
179
180 Then write a corresponding **data/2.md** file, using markdown.
181
182
183 ## How-to Publish A Post
184
185 I prepared a Makefile to facilitate the process of generating and
186 publishing your static sites.
187 All you need to do in order to publish is to go into your cl-yag
188 directory and type ``make``.
189
190 The make command creates html and gopher files in the defined location.
191 The default is the **output/** directory, but you can use a symbolic link
192 pointing to some other directory as well.
193
194
195 ## How-to Add A New Page
196
197 You may want to have some dedicated pages besides the index or a post.
198 To create one, edit the *generate-site* function in cl-yag's
199 **generator.lisp** and add a function call, like this:
200
201 (generate "somepage.html" (load-file "data/mypage.html"))
202
203 This will produce **output/html/somepage.html**.
204
205
206 ## Further Customization
207
208 ### How-to Use Another Common Lisp Interpreter
209
210 cl-yags default Lisp interpreter is **sbcl**. If you want to use a
211 different interpreter you need to set the variable *LISP* to the name
212 of your binary, when calling ``make``:
213
214 make LISP=ecl
215
216
217 ### Using git Hooks For Publishing
218
219 You may customize your publishing-process further, e.g. by using a git
220 hook to call the make program after each change in the repo so your
221 website gets updated automatically.
222
223
224 ## Page-Includes
225
226 Here is an example code, if you want to include another page in the template:
227
228 1. Create **templates/panel.tpl** containing the html you want to include.
229 2. Add a replacement-string in the target file, where the replacement should occur.
230 In this case, we choose **%%Panel%%** for a string, and, because we want the panel to be displayed on each page, we add this string to **templates/layout.tpl**.
231
232 3. Modify the function *generate-layout* in cl-yag's **generator.lisp** accordingly.
233 This is done by adding the following template function call:
234
235 (template "%%Panel%%" (load-file "templates/panel.tpl"))
236
237 Another valid approach is to writer your html directly into **templates/layout.tpl**.
238
239 ## Known Limitations
240
241 ### Use ~~ To Create ~
242
243 cl-yag crashes if you use a single "~" character inside
244 **templates/articles.lisp**, because Common Lisp employs the tilde as a
245 prefix to indicate format specifiers in format strings.
246
247 In order to use a literal `~` -- e.g. for creating a ``:title`` or
248 ``:url`` reference -- you have to *escape* the tilde *by
249 duplicating* it: ``~~``. (See ``:url`` in section 'Configuration').
250
251
252 ### Posting Without Tagging
253
254 cl-yag allows posts without tags, but, using the default
255 **templates/layout.tpl**, you'll get a line below your title that
256 displays: "Tags: ".
257
258 (Note: If you are looking for a way to contribute this may be a task for you.)
259
260
261 ### A Note On Themes
262
263 Although cl-yag may ship with a minimalist template, cl-yag focuses
264 on generating html- and gopher-compliant structural markup - not
265 themed layouts.
266
267 If you want some deeply refined, cross-browser compatible, responsive,
268 webscale style sheets, you need to create them yourself. However,
269 cl-yag will work nicely with them and if you want to make your
270 style sheets a part of cl-yag you're very welcome to contact me.
271
272
273 # Hacking cl-yag
274
275 I tried to make cl-yag easy to extend.
276 If you want to contribute, feel free to contact me and/or to send in a patch.
277
278 - If you are looking for a way to contribute:
279 - You could find a way to "sanitize" cl-yag's behaviour regarding the tilde (see: above);
280 - Also see: 'Note' in 'Posting Without Tagging';
281 - Also see: 'A Note On Themes'.