BloxImages

A blox prebuild plugin to create image records for the images in your static directory.

bloximages scans your static_dir for images, then creates a yaml file for each image in your data_dir in the format image_id.yaml. In a prebuild step, it reads each image from disk and records the dimensions in the yaml file.

Because it is a prebuild plugin, cue records are created for each image, allowing you to use the image in relational records.

Example article:

title: My Article
image_id: athens

This would reference an image in the static_dir file name (without extension) of athens.

The athens.yml file that is created by this plugin might look like this:

file_name: images/athens.jpg
height: 364
width: 795
cdn: "https://images.brian.dev/images/"

It stores the file name relative to the static_dir and the dimensions of the image.

Optionally you can export an environment variable named CDN_URL to store a CDN prefix for the image. When used in combination with the staticsync plugin, the CDN prefix will allow you to construct the full URL to the image on your CDN. The CDN prefix should be specified to include the base CDN and the bucket where you're storing images.

cdn: "https://images.brian.dev/images/"
               ^^^ CDN BASE     ^^^ BUCKET

Getting Started

BloxImages is written in Go. You'll need a local Go installation to use it, so follow the instructions at go.dev to install Go on your computer.

Prerequisites

The things you need before installing the software.

• Go version 1.17 or later.

Installation

$ go get github.com/cueblox/bloximages

Usage

Add the plugin to your blox.cue configuration file as a prebuild plugin.

{
  data_dir: "data"
  schemata_dir: "data/schemata"
  build_dir: ".build"
  template_dir: "data/tpl"
  static_dir: "public/static"
  prebuild: [ {
    name: "bloximages"
    executable: "bloximages"
  }]
}

Configuration

Add an image (named image.cue) schema to your blox schemata directory:

{
	_schema: {
		name:      "Image"
		namespace: "schemas.cueblox.com"
	}

	#Image: {
		_dataset: {
			plural: "images"
			supportedExtensions: ["yaml", "yml"]
		}

		file_name:          string
		width:              int
		height:             int
    cdn?:               string
		alt_text?:          string
		caption?:           string
		attribution?:       string
		attribution_link?:  string
	}
}

Contributing

See contributing guide for more information.

Future Features

BloxImage may be updated to automatically generate resized and optimized images at a variety of breakpoints.

Inspiration: 11ty Image is an 11ty image plugin that generates responsive images.