by By: Jens in python | tools

Some time ago i started thinking of building a better tools page for Imago. One of my requirements was that it had to be a plain static xhtml site, no dynamic generation on request. It's the most frequented page here, so i'd prefer a simple static site. But i didn't like to hardcode layout and content in one file. That would be a maintenance nightmare for me. I needed a better solution and came up with the following must have requiremtents:

  • Separation of layout/design (xhtml) and my text content
  • Easy use of free/open source templates
  • Content my be written in markdown or similiar syntax
  • Splitting page content into multiple files

After some time googling i gave up. I didn't find an existing app, neither one i could easily adjust. So the Codeboje Website Builder (bloody working name) was born.

What does it do?

Our Website Builder is a simple tool that lets you build your website from simple templates and keep the contents in markdown text.

How it differes from other solutions:

  • no configuration file, we use a simple naming scheme
  • each page can have it's own template
  • we are using the django template system, so no new template engine and and selfmade syntax to learn
  • the content of a single html page can be split up into multiple textblock and every block has its own text file


Whats needed?

Website Builder depends on the following python modules:

  • django template engine
  • python markdown
  • codehilite for python markdown
  • one syntax hightlighter supported by codehilite


How to use it?

It's simple and has some minor prerequisite one should know. Best is we take a look at the folder structure.

Screenshot folderstructure As you can see in the screenshot we need a folder for the content and one for the templates. The content files must have the endind .md.

The content folder:
Each page to generate has to have its own subfolder here. The name of the folder is also the name of the resulting page. All .md files inside a subfolder will be markdowned and accesible in the django template context. A simple named scheme applies:

  • If the .md file is named the same as the folder it's handled as the maincontent (main_content) for this page.
  • all others get a section_ prefix and - are replaced by _


In addition there are 2 special folders:

  • the static folder contain static file which get copied to the generated output directory. For images, some css and alike
  • a commons folder for content block which should be available in more then one page


The templates:
Each page can have its own template (pagename = templatename). Theres a fallback to the default.html template if none for the site is found. You should have full django template support.

After merging you'll find the generated site in ./generated_html/ .

Download

download the sitebuilder here Feedback is welcome :-)