I have never used Jekyll. I do, however, frequently use nanoc[1] - it takes a bit more effort to set up, but it is far more flexible, because instead of ridiculous configuration files, you are actually writing Ruby code (in a very nice DSL, might I add) that controls how each set of files is compiled.
One thing I did with it was create a Web site with recipes on it. The recipe files didn't have any actual content, everything was stored in the metadata. I had the Rules file set up so that they would run the Recipes through a layout that would expand them to HTML (consistently), then that was run through the normal page template.
It also used a preprocess rule to generate fresh items "on the fly" that serve as indices for each recipe type. Again, no content - the Rules file is set up so that the artificial items get all their content from a layout before being actually layouted with the site template.
Ever since I installed Wappalyzer in my browser (detects what frameworks and technologies a website uses) more and more often I come across websites that I am shocked use so many backend and frontend frameworks. I'm shocked because that means they are spending unnecessary amounts of money, time and effort on hosting (e.g. Wordpress hosting), development and maintenance when the entire site would be perfectly well-served (and faster!) with static pages.
The problem until recently was that there weren't appropriate tools for the job, but this article should prove that's now changing.
I agree that a lot of frameworks are overkill, but if you put yourself in the frame of mind of a non-programming designer or a layperson who just needs to manage content on their site, using a static HTML generation tool is out of the question. I've been using octopress/jekyll recently and think it's amazing and really love it, but there's no way in a million years I could give that to a client to manage their own website.
Also, it's not really wasting time or money -- cheap shared hosting costs the same regardless of whether you're serving a php/mysql app or static html files. And setting up a wordpress site is probably easier for non-programmers than getting a jekyll setup going.
It's definitely a colossal waste of CPU power though, but that train left the station 10 years ago.
What I always found a bit annoying about jekyll (at least without plugin or forks) is that something like http://developmentseed.org/blog/2011/ or http://developmentseed.org/blog/2011/09/ doesn't work, i.e. the set of archive pages is pretty limited. You get one big one, and then a simple numeric pagination. I used some perl script ages ago (blosxom?), and it did just that.
Still, I guess I can hack that into the code somehow…
One "prepackaged" jekyll configuration that looks quite interesting is Octopress: http://octopress.org/
- No proper attribution to code that they clearly didn't write themselves. It's not that hard people.
- Time could be better spent making the Jekyll docs clearer. The time they spent creating this could have gone into official documentation efforts and creating a better default in the core
- Would be nice if they could add chuck those plugins into their own repository. That way it would be possible to add them to the plugin list I created on the official Jekyll Wiki
I also wish it had a better base template, but I'm no designer, so what the hell do I know.
If you're interesting in this, you should also check out Octopress, which sits on top of Jekyll and provides a nice default theme, handy addons (for google site search, disqus comments, twitter/facebook sharing, etc.), and deployment scripts.
[+] [-] LeafStorm|14 years ago|reply
One thing I did with it was create a Web site with recipes on it. The recipe files didn't have any actual content, everything was stored in the metadata. I had the Rules file set up so that they would run the Recipes through a layout that would expand them to HTML (consistently), then that was run through the normal page template.
It also used a preprocess rule to generate fresh items "on the fly" that serve as indices for each recipe type. Again, no content - the Rules file is set up so that the artificial items get all their content from a layout before being actually layouted with the site template.
[1]: http://nanoc.stoneship.org/
[+] [-] winton|14 years ago|reply
http://stasis.me
[+] [-] amirhhz|14 years ago|reply
The problem until recently was that there weren't appropriate tools for the job, but this article should prove that's now changing.
[+] [-] jordanlev|14 years ago|reply
Also, it's not really wasting time or money -- cheap shared hosting costs the same regardless of whether you're serving a php/mysql app or static html files. And setting up a wordpress site is probably easier for non-programmers than getting a jekyll setup going.
It's definitely a colossal waste of CPU power though, but that train left the station 10 years ago.
[+] [-] AdesR|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xal|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mhd|14 years ago|reply
Still, I guess I can hack that into the code somehow…
One "prepackaged" jekyll configuration that looks quite interesting is Octopress: http://octopress.org/
[+] [-] josegonzalez|14 years ago|reply
- No proper attribution to code that they clearly didn't write themselves. It's not that hard people.
- Time could be better spent making the Jekyll docs clearer. The time they spent creating this could have gone into official documentation efforts and creating a better default in the core
- Would be nice if they could add chuck those plugins into their own repository. That way it would be possible to add them to the plugin list I created on the official Jekyll Wiki
I also wish it had a better base template, but I'm no designer, so what the hell do I know.
[+] [-] socratic|14 years ago|reply
https://github.com/josegonzalez/josediazgonzalez.com/tree/ma...
[+] [-] jordanlev|14 years ago|reply
http://octopress.org/
[+] [-] rcfox|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AdesR|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] sramov|14 years ago|reply
I do the same, except I host at NearlyFreeSpeech.NET, which just feels right.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]