Swb (/sweb/) is tool that allows to build and manage collections of template based static websites. Pages content can be written in any choosen language (e.g. markdown), and proper HTML documents are generated using a shell command based templates.

• git repo

In swb, two file trees are maintained at the same time:

• A src tree that contains all the resources (i.e. images, any kind of raw file, etc) and webpage content files (e.g. markdown files).
• A dst tree that is a (smart) copy of the src tree, except that all content files have been compiled to HTML documents.

The dst tree is filled by the swb build process and should no be modified by hand. The user can add new directory and webpages by creating directory and content files in the src tree, then build the dst tree by running swb.

Each website needs to have a template file that will be used to build every HTML file of the dst tree (for every content file in the src tree, swb runs through the template file and can insert the content in the final HTML document).

Here is an example of what the sites directory can look like. It contains the config.json file that holds the config for both the example.com and the zoo.com websites, a tpl directory that contains the template files for both sites, and finally the src dir that the src tree of our websites.

sites
├── config.json
├── src
│   ├── example.com
│   │   ├── foo
│   │   │   └── index.md
│   │   ├── image.png
│   │   └── index.md
│   └── zoo.com
│       ├── zoo.png
│       └── bar.md
└── tpl
    ├── example.com.tpl
    └── zoo.com.tpl

The associated dst trees (e.g. /var/www/example.com and /var/www/zoo.com) will hold the same content, but markdown files have been compiled to HTML document according the the associated file template.

/var/www
├── example.com
│   ├── foo
│   │   └── index.html
│   ├── image.png
│   └── index.html
└── zoo.com
    ├── zoo.png
    └── bar.html

The config.json file allows minimal customization and configuration of the websites building process.

{
    "runCmd": ["bash", "-c"],
    "builder": {
        "ext": ".md",
        "bin": "pandoc"
    },
    "sites": [
        {
            "name": "example.com",
            "srcRoot": "src/example.com",
            "dstRoot": "/var/www/example.com",
            "tplPath": "tpl/example.com.tpl"
        },
        {
            "name": "example.com",
            "srcRoot": "src/zoo.com",
            "dstRoot": "/var/www/zoo.com",
            "tplPath": "tpl/zoo.com.tpl",
            "env": [
                "test=foobar"
            ]
        }
    ]
}

• runCmd: Command that will run the commands in the template files (in the execvp(3) format with the terminating NULL`).
• builder: The builder is an arbitrary program that can convert any type of file to HTML document (e.g. pandoc).
  • ext: File extension of the content files.
  • bin: Text that will be stored in the $builder env var in template command substitution.
• sites: Contains all the websites we want to maintain (HTTP virtual hosts).
  • name: Plain name of the website.
  • srcRoot: Path of the src tree.
  • dstRoot: Path of the dst tree.
  • tplPath: Path of the site's template file.
  • (Optional) env: Array of custom environment variables that can be accessed from the template file.

Each website must have a template file. A template file is a regular HTML document, except: lines that begin with %{ are opening a command substitution, and lines that begin }% are closing a command substitution. Commands are runs as argument of config's runCmd command, and optionaly defined env variable from config's env array are added to the env of the runCmd execution, as well as a few built-in ones:

• $site_name: Plain website name, as defined in the configuration file.
• $page_name: Basename of the HTML document the template is used for, without the .html suffix.
• $src_path: Absolute path in the src tree of the document the template is used for.
• $dst_path: Absolute path in the dst tree of the document the template is used for.
• $builder: Builder command/string, as defined in the configuration file.

<h1>
%{
	echo $page_name
}%
</h1>

Built with <code>swb</code>

%{
	$builder $src_path
}%

Templates can use config defined variables:
%{
	echo $test
}%

This is a footer

Note that the $builder $src_path command will use the builder command to convert the markdown file into html and insert it in the template.

Usage of swb:
  -b    Build the dst trees
  -c string
        Configuration file (default "config.json")
  -k    Clean the dst trees
  -w string
        Working directory (default ".")

% cd sites
% swb -b
 + /var/www/example.com/
 + /var/www/example.com/foo/
 + /var/www/example.com/foo/index.html
 + /var/www/example.com/image.png
 + /var/www/example.com/index.html
 + /var/www/zoo.com/
 + /var/www/zoo.com/zoo.png
 + /var/www/zoo.com/bar.html
%
% # if we try to rebuild nothing happens 
% swb -b
%
% # if we modify a markdown file, the associated HTML doc will be rebuilt
% echo 'modified !' >>src/zoo.com/bar.md
% swb -b
 ^ /var/www/example.com/index.html
%
% # if we modify the site's template, all HTML doc will be rebuilt
% echo 'modified !' >>tpl/example.com.tpl
% swb -b
 ^ /var/www/example.com/foo/index.html
 ^ /var/www/example.com/index.html
%
% # if we modify non webpage resource, nothing happens, hard link created
% # in the dst tree already reflect the changes.
% echo 'modified !' >>src/zoo.com/zoo.png
% swb -b
%

% cd sites
% # dst trees can be deleted (cleared)
% swb -k
 - /var/www/example.com/*
 - /var/www/zoo.com/*
%

% cd sites
% swb -b 
 + /var/www/example.com/
 + /var/www/example.com/foo/
 + /var/www/example.com/foo/index.html
 + /var/www/example.com/image.png
 + /var/www/example.com/index.html
 + /var/www/zoo.com/
 + /var/www/zoo.com/zoo.png
 + /var/www/zoo.com/bar.html
%
% # if we remove resources or content file from the src tree,
% # their copy/equivalent is purged from the dst tree.
% rm src/example.com/image.png
% rm src/zoo.com/bar.md
% swb -b
 - /var/www/example.com/image.png
 - /var/www/zoo.com/bar.html
%