README

Source code for a Node.js command-line tool for building static websites.

• Templating with Handlebars.
• Styling with LESS.

Installation

Prior to installation, you will require a recent installation of Node and NPM.

To test this locally, run:

npm link

Usage

Once installed, the tool can be accessed globally with

ss

Commands

Command	Description
clean	Removes everything in the output folder
copy	Copies files/folders in _SRC_DIR not prefixed with _ or . or blacklisted
build	Shortcut for clean + copy + compile
compile	Generates the static pages in the output folder
init	Downloads the repos and readies the file system
launch	Opens site in browser
post	Creates an empty post file, opens in text editor by default or to open in browser, add --html
less	Compiles the less to the output folder
set	Sets config options from the command line
serve	Runs local server and opens in browser
watch	Watches for changes, and executes the relevant CLI command set in config.json

Tool configuration

There are a few settings that can be

Site source

In order to build a site using the tool, you’ll need to make sure you have a valid source folder set up.

Folder structure

Folder	Description
_data	Site configuration data.
_less	Site styling.
_pages	Individual .md files for each page.
_posts	Individual .md files for each blog post.
_templates	Handlebars template files for the site pages. Main page wrapper taken from page.html.

Site configuration

The _data/config.json is used to define the site structure. In here, you must define the pages you want to appear, as well as various other settings.

The following attributes must appear for a site to be generated:

globals

This does something.

"globals": {
  "assetsDir": "/assets"
}

menu

This object defines what's shown on the site's main navigation menu, and should be an array of objects with the form:

{
  "id": "", // a unique value for this item
  "html": "", // what's rendered on-screen
  "url": "", // where to navigate on click
  "target": "" // the anchor tag's target
}

theme

"theme": {
  "main": "base.less",
  "options": {
    "compress": true
  }
}

pages

"pages": {
  "home": {
    "title": {
      "text": "Home",
      "show": false
    },
    "description": {
      "text": "You've stumbled across my blog: the home of my most private, innermost thoughts and reflections. And random cat videos.",
      "show": true
    },
    "links": {
      "Latest posts": "/blog",
      "Archive": "/blog/archive"
    },
    "template": "blog.hbs",
    "subDir": false
  }
}

"blog": {
  "paginate": {
    "pageSize": 10,
    "pagedAttr": "posts"
  },
  "editor": "atom",
  "pages": {
    "posts": {
      "template": "post.hbs"
    },
    "tags": {
      "title": "Posts tagged with '[TAG]'",
      "template": "tags.hbs"
    },
    "archive": {
      "title": "The blog archives",
      "description": "Here you'll find every post from my blog's distant past, so put your feet up, brush off the dust, and read at your own peril.",
      "template": "archive.hbs"
    }
  }
}