PyJello - A Simple Static Site Generator

What is this?

PyJello was the fruit(haha!) of Python wielded in anger. I wanted a simple static site generator, that could handle static files without fuss, support Jinja2 and allow me to use MarkDown. I found Pelican unwieldy and too opiniated, and let's not even talk about Hugo. I decided that it made more sense to spend countless hours building my own framework than learning to use Pelican or Hugo, obviously.

What makes PyJello so special, huh?

You mean other than the really cool name?

PyJello is extremely simple and configurable.

• Great support for Static Files
• Build your templates in Jinja2
• Write your posts with Markdown.
• Meta-attribute support in Markdown.
• Supports any ordering in your index files - completely customizable.
• Supports multiple "article-lists" at multiple paths.

Do you do any versioning or testing?

We are too cool for any of these.

I will be building out unittest cases soon.

No, seriously.

Does this actually work? Where can we see it in action?

My Personal Site - the raison d'etre for Pyjello

Okay, we love it. Now how do I actually use the damn thing?

For now -

1. Download/Clone the repo.
2. Modify scripts/pyjello_conf.py to your liking.
3. Replace the existing static/index.html with your own.
4. Look at templates/common/base.html, templates/blog/article.html and templates/blog/article_list.html. Change according to taste.
5. Run python scripts/pyjello.py
6. Revel in the glory that is your new static site. (You'll find it in the output directory you defined in scripts/pyjello_conf.py.)

I'll be converting this into a module and publishing on pip soon.

Can I contribute?

Yes. Pull requests are appreciated.

Bugs

Too many at this point. But they will be squashed - maybe slowly, but mercilessly.

Reference

Special Markdown Attributes

title : Title of the article/post

postdate : Date of posting. PyJello will use today() as postdate if attribute is not specified.

draft : Consider the post/article as Draft. Does not generate html. Only the attribute is required in your markdown file, you do not need to specifically set the attribute to True.

category : Category. PyJello will use DEFAULT_CATEGORY from the configuration file if this attribute is not specified.

author : Author. PyJello will use DEFAULT_AUTHOR from the configuration file if this attribute is not specified.

pinned : Affects sort order by pinning the post to the top. Sort behaviour can be customized in the article_list template, and you can choose to ignore this attribute. PyJello will set this to false if this attribute is not specified. Only the attribute is required in your markdown file, you do not need to specifically set the attribute to True.

tags : Tags. Optional attribute, and will be ignored if not specified.