JotunPy

Static site generator with live development preview written in Python. The live development server makes use of server-sent events to refresh the client browser on state change.

Installation

Clone the repository and run the install.bat script to install the required dependencies. The script will create a new virtual environment in the venv directory, and install all the required dependencies into the virtual environment. The script will also create a new config.ini file in the root directory of the project.

Windows

git clone https://github.com/cyn1x/jotunpy.git
cd jotunpy
install.bat

Linux

Usage

I personally prefer using virtual environments to not pollute the global pip namespace when not necessary to do so.

When running for the first time, create a new website directory to copy all stock templates over to the new working directory for customization.

venv\Scripts\activate
python main.py new -o "..\my-awesome-website"
cd ..\my-awesome-website
python ..\jotunpy\main.py dev

When running thereafter, just activate the virtual environment before starting the live development server in the current working directory.

..\jotunpy\venv\Scripts\activate
python ..\jotunpy\main.py dev

Help

The -h or --help flag shows information on all the available options.

> python main.py -h
usage: main.py [-h] {dev,build,new} ...

Static site generator and development server

positional arguments:
  {dev,build,new}  sub command help
    dev            run the development server
    build          bundle for production deployment
    new            generate a new project

options:
  -h, --help       show this help message and exit

Similarly, each sub command contains useful help information for any optional arguments.

> python main.py dev -h
usage: main.py dev [-h] [-p PORT]

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -p PORT, --port PORT  port number for the development server

Configuration

JotunPy supports application specific configurations through a config.ini file, and environment variable loading through a config.yaml file.

INI

The INI file is used for application specific settings. Most of the important settings are stored in the config.ini file in the root directory of the directory where the new project was created. The CLIENT_SIDE_ROUTING key indicates whether a JavaScript based router will be used for client-side rendering. The default value is No to ensure the development utilities are injected into all HTML files unless otherwise specified.

YAML

The YAML configuration file is used for loading environment variables into the application's runtime. An example of its usefulness can be demonstrated with non-sensitive information like separate API URIs depending on whether a site build is triggered for production, or live development preview is enabled for site development.

development: {
  key: 'value'
}
production: {
  key: 'value'
}

Blog

Blog posts are only published in the site.rss feed if a build is triggered for production using the build option. Site rebuilds in development using the dev option mode will not update the site.rss feed, and instead use the time of the last development build as a placeholder for the publication date of the blog post in HTML.

Database

An SQLite database is used to store blog post metadata for published blog posts. The database is created in the root .data/ directory of the project when a new project is created using the new option with the filename site.db.