qsgen2/README.md

<img src="qsg2-square.png" width="150" align="left">

# Quick Site Generator 2
Quick Site Generator 2 is a static website generator inspired by [Nikola](https://github.com/getnikola/nikola) and written for [Zsh](https://zsh.sourceforge.io/).

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## Why?

Well, I wanted something that worked for me and wasn't too complicated and I also like a challenge.

It all started with a simple script I wrote that I called ```myjourney``` to write about a journey I was on. It worked well enough, but soon I wanted to create something else and something more complex.

So I started to write another script I aptly called ```generate```.This also worked really great. It was, however, very limited and not very portable.

Then this script was born. It has the same ideas as the first two, but is an almost complete rewrite of ```generate```. It does, however, use some of the same functions and is also more portable. The next steps is to try to use more of the Zsh modules instead of always relying on external tools like Perl, sed and awk. In other words, a work in progress.

## What is qsgen2?

```qsgen2``` is capable of creating static HTML pages using the native ```_html``` engine that uses ```QStags``` (that I'll describe in detail later) or by writing your pages and blogs in Markdown. It uses [Pandoc](https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/releases), mostly because it's the most compete tool for the job. Not all Linux distributions have it, so you can just download the binaries and place them where it suits you the best.

You cannot mix native and Markdown when creating your projects.

## What it's not!

```Quick Site Generator 2``` is not easy. It's not bug free. It's not a professional product. It's not really production ready, although it works great for me.

## Configuration

Copy ```qsgen2``` and the directory ```include``` to ${HOME}/bin/.

Then create you project directory, for example ```${HOME}/sites/new-site```.
Copy the file ```config``` and the directory ```themes``` to your project directory.

You first have to configure your site and this is done in the file [config](config).
Do the necessary changes.

Create a directory named ```blog``` if you want to have blogs on your site.

Create your index file with either ```tpl``` to use the native engine or ```md``` to use Markdown.
I will, as mentioned, create a how-to on ```QStags```.

I am considering adding a command line, ```init```, that will guide you through this process in an interactive manner.

## Themes

```qsgen``` uses templates that reside in ```$project_dir/themes/<theme name>```. 
The theme consists of 4 files:

* blogs.tpl
* pages.tpl
* blog_index.tpl
* blog_list.tpl

### Blogs

The file ```blogs.tpl``` is used to create the blog posts that will reside in ```$www_root/blogs/year/mon/date/title-of-blog-post.html```.
```qsgen2``` will list all the files in ```blog/*.blog``` and do its magic before the word/tag ```BODY``` in the blogs.tpl file is replaced with the HTML formatted content and then the file will be written to disk.

Other tags/words that are replaced are:

* BLOGTITLE
* CALADAY
* CALNDAY
* CALMONTH
* CALYEAR
* INGRESS

Then the footer of the document is updated with today's date and the name and version of the script.

The themes engine is not 100% complete because there still are some static text that could or should be replaced. It is, however, quite easy.

#### Blog Index

There is an option in the file ```config``` if you want to show the blog on the front page or not. If set to false, it will write a file in ```$www_root/blog/index.html``` that contains, in reverse order, the blogs written.

To do this it uses the file ```blog_list.tpl``` as a template for how to format this list and then it inserts this into the file ```blog_index.tpl``` which then is written to disk.

### Pages

The process of creating pages is almost the same as with blogs, but with fewer, and other, replacements.

Tags replaced are:

* #pagetitle
* #tagline
* BODY

And then the footer gets the same touch as the blog posts.

### Knows bugs

* Sometimes it doesn't write the Blog Index file (/blog/index.html) with all the blogs, only the latest.
  * The problem is that when a new blog post is added, it doesn't get added to the list of posts