Ugling: the phing powered static site generator (the begin)

Preface

I was looking for a project to use phing in a way that isn't expected.

Using it to remove version software directories or run tests is done so many times before.

The cool programmers started using static site generators like jekyll and petrify.

Why would you need a database if most of your content is static.

So why not use phing to do the same thing.

I also want to make the threshold as low as possible.
Markdown is one thing but other elements like the navigation are going to be not that easy.

Transforming the markdown

Creating a task in phing is easy, certainly if someone already did a similar task.

I just copied the code from the rSTTask, removed the parts i didn't need and changed the code to use the markdown class.

The source layout

• content
  
  
  
  • index.md
  
  
  
  


• media


• online


• templates
  
  
  
  • base.html
  
  
  
  


• build.xml

As you can see the content directory holds the markdown files.

You can add as many subdirectories as needed. And use index.md files to display content for an url without the html extension.

The media directory will hold css files, js files, and other public content.

I'm not sure i'm going to keep it because the only phing action will coppy the files to the online directory.

The online directory holds all the files you can place online.

The templates directory holds html files that have placeholders.
This will be for the 'expert' users.

The build.xml file is the phing hook which will take care of all the actions.

Later there can come a build.properties file to move the user accessible properties outside the build script.

Build.xml content

I think it's a readable file.

1. Set the start target: default="loop"


2. Add properties


3. Add markdown task


4. Find all markdown files and send the file names to the single target


5. Process the markdown file and move it to the online directory

The future

Now that the easy part is over I can go to work on the necessary plugins.
Navigation is the first that needs attention.