NAME

blag - blag 1.4.1
 
blag is a blog-aware, static site generator, written in Python. An example "deployment" can be found here.
 
blag is named after the blag of the webcomic xkcd.

FEATURES

•
Write content in Markdown
•
Theming support using Jinja2 templates
•
Generation of Atom feeds for blog content
•
Fenced code blocks and syntax highlighting using Pygments
•
Integrated devserver
•
Available on PyPI

 
blag runs on Linux, Mac and Windows and requires Python >= 3.8

MANUAL

Quickstart

Install blag from PyPI
 
$ pip install blag


 
Run blag's quickstart command to create the configuration needed
 
$ blag quickstart


 
Create some content
 
$ mkdir content
$ edit content/hello-world.md


 
Generate the website
 
$ blag build


 
By default, blag will search for content in content and the output will be generated in build. All markdown files in content will be converted to html, all other files (i.e. static files) will be copied over).
 
If you want more separation between the static files and the markdown content, you can put all static files into the static directory. Blag will copy them over to the build directory.
 
If you want to customize the looks of the generated site, create a template directory and put your jinja2 templates here.
 
Those directories can be changed via command line arguments. See
 
$ blag --help


Manual

Pages and Articles

Internally, blag differentiates between pages and articles. Intuitively, pages are simple pages and articles are blog posts. The decision whether a document is a page or an article is made depending on the presence of the date metadata element: Any document that contains the date metadata element is an article, everything else a page.
 
This differentiation has consequences:
•
blag uses different templates: page.html and article.html
•
only articles are collected in the Atom feed
•
only articles are aggregated in the tag pages

 
blag does not enforce a certain directory structure for pages and articles. You can mix and match them freely or structure them in different directories. blag will mirror the structure found in the content directory
 
content/
    article1.md
    article2.md
    page1.md


 
results in:
 
build/
    article1.html
    article2.html
    page1.html


 
Arbitrary complex structures are possible too:
 
content/
    posts/
        2020/
            2020-01-01-foo.md
            2020-02-01-foo.md
    pages/
        foo.md
        bar.md


 
results in:
 
build/
    posts/
        2020/
            2020-01-01-foo.html
            2020-02-01-foo.html
    pages/
        foo.html
        bar.html


Static Files

Static files can be put into the content directory and will be copied over to the build directory as well. If you want better separation between content and static files, you can create a static directory and put the files there. All files and directories found in the static directory will be copied over to build.
 
content/
    foo.md
    bar.md
    kitty.jpg


 
results in:
 
build/
    foo.html
    bar.html
    kitty.jpg


 
Alternatively:
 
content/
    foo.md
    bar.md
static/
    kitty.jpg


 
results in:
 
build/
    foo.html
    bar.html
    kitty.jpg


In contrast to most other static blog generators, blag will automatically convert relative markdown links. That means you can link you content using relative markdown links and blag will convert them to html automatically. The advantage is that your content tree in markdown is consistent and self-contained even if you don't generate html from it.
 
[...]
this is a [link](foo.md) to an internal page foo.


 
becomes
 
<p>this is a <a href="foo.html">link</a> to an internal page foo.</p>


Templating

Custom templates are optional and stored by default in the templates directory. blag will search the templates directory first, and fall back to blag's default built-in templates.
Template Used For Variables
page.html pages (i.e. non-articles) site, content, meta
article.html articles (i.e. blog posts) site, content, meta
archive.html archive- and landing page of the blog site, archive
tags.html list of tags site, tags
tag.html archive of Articles with a certain tag site, archive, tag
 
If you make use of Jinja2's template inheritance, you can of course have more template files in the templates directory.
site
This dictionary contains the site configuration, namely: base_url, title, description and author. Don't confuse the site-title and -description with the title and description of individual pages or articles.
content
HTML, converted from markdown.
meta
meta stands for all metadata elements available in the article or page. Please be aware that those are not wrapped in a dictionary, but directly available as variables.
archive
A list of [destination path, context] tuples, where the context are the respective variables that would be provided to the individual page or article.
tags
List of tags.
tag
A tag.

Metadata

blag supports metadata elements in the markdown files. They must come before the content and should be separated from the content with a blank line:
 
title: foo
date: 2020-02-02
tags: this, is, a, test
description: some subtitle


this is my content.
[...]


 
blag supports arbitrary metadata in your documents, and you can use them freely in you templates. However, some metadata elements are treated special:
date
If a document contains the date element, it is treated as an article, otherwise as a page. Additionally, date elements are expected to be in ISO format (e.g. 1980-05-05 21:58). They are automatically converted into datetime objects with the local timezone attached.
tags
Tags are interpreted as a comma separated list. All elements are stripped and converted to lower-case: tags: foo, Foo Bar, BAZ becomes: [foo, foo bar, baz]. Tags in articles are also used to generate the tag-pages, that aggregate all articles per tag.
title and description
The title and description are used in the html header and in the atom feed.

Devserver

blag provides a devserver which you can use for local web-development. The devserver provides a simple web server, serving your site in http://localhost:8000 and will automatically rebuild the project when it detects modifications in one of the content, static and templates directories.
 
$ blag serve


API

blag.__init__ Initialize self.
blag.version
blag.blag blag's core methods.
blag.markdown Markdown Processing.
blag.devserver Development Server.
blag.quickstart Helper methods for blag's quickstart command.

blag.__init__

blag.__init__ = <method-wrapper '__init__' of module object>
Initialize self. See help(type(self)) for accurate signature.

blag.version

blag.blag

blag's core methods.
 
Functions
build(args) Build the site.
environment_factory([template_dir, globals_]) Environment factory.
generate_archive(articles, template, output_dir) Generate the archive page.
generate_feed(articles, output_dir, ...) Generate Atom feed.
generate_tags(articles, tags_template, ...) Generate the tags page.
get_config(configfile) Load site configuration from configfile.
main([arguments]) Main entrypoint for the CLI.
parse_args([args]) Parse command line arguments.
process_markdown(convertibles, input_dir, ...) Process markdown files.
blag.blag.build(args: argparse.Namespace) -> None
Build the site. This is blag's main method that builds the site, generates the feed etc.
Parameters
args --


blag.blag.environment_factory(template_dir: Optional[str] = None, globals_: Optional[dict[str, object]] = None) -> jinja2.environment.Environment
Environment factory. Creates a Jinja2 Environment with the default templates and additional templates from template_dir loaded. If globals are provided, they are attached to the environment and thus available to all contexts.
Parameters
•
template_dir -- directory containing the templates
•
globals --

Return type
jinja2.Environment


blag.blag.generate_archive(articles: list[tuple[str, dict[str, Any]]], template: jinja2.environment.Template, output_dir: str) -> None
Generate the archive page.
Parameters
•
articles -- List of articles. Each article has the destination path and a dictionary with the content.
•
template --
•
output_dir --



blag.blag.generate_feed(articles: list[tuple[str, dict[str, Any]]], output_dir: str, base_url: str, blog_title: str, blog_description: str, blog_author: str) -> None
Generate Atom feed.
Parameters
•
articles -- list of relative output path and article dictionary
•
output_dir -- where the feed is stored
•
base_url -- base url
•
blog_title -- blog title
•
blog_description -- blog description
•
blog_author -- blog author



blag.blag.generate_tags(articles: list[tuple[str, dict[str, Any]]], tags_template: jinja2.environment.Template, tag_template: jinja2.environment.Template, output_dir: str) -> None
Generate the tags page.
Parameters
•
articles -- List of articles. Each article has the destination path and a dictionary with the content.
•
tags_template --
•
tag_template --
•
output_dir --



blag.blag.get_config(configfile: str) -> configparser.SectionProxy
Load site configuration from configfile.
Parameters
configfile -- path to configuration file
Return type
configparser.SectionProxy


blag.blag.main(arguments: Optional[list[str]] = None) -> None
Main entrypoint for the CLI. This method parses the CLI arguments and executes the respective commands.
Parameters
arguments -- optional parameters, used for testing


blag.blag.parse_args(args: Optional[list[str]] = None) -> argparse.Namespace
Parse command line arguments.
Parameters
args -- optional parameters, used for testing
Return type
arparse.Namespace


blag.blag.process_markdown(convertibles: list[tuple[str, str]], input_dir: str, output_dir: str, page_template: jinja2.environment.Template, article_template: jinja2.environment.Template) -> tuple[list[tuple[str, dict[str, Any]]], list[tuple[str, dict[str, Any]]]]
Process markdown files. This method processes the convertibles, converts them to html and saves them to the respective destination paths. If a markdown file has a date metadata field it will be recognized as article otherwise as page.
Parameters
•
convertibles -- relative paths to markdown- (src) html- (dest) files
•
input_dir --
•
output_dir --
•
page_template -- templats for pages and articles
•
archive_template -- templats for pages and articles

Returns
articles and pages
Return type
list[tuple[str, dict[str, Any]]], list[tuple[str, dict[str, Any]]]


blag.markdown

Markdown Processing.
 
This module contains the methods responsible for blag's markdown processing.
 
Functions
convert_markdown(md, markdown) Convert markdown into html and extract meta data.
markdown_factory() Create a Markdown instance.
 
Classes
MarkdownLinkExtension(**kwargs) markdown.extension that converts relative .md- to .html-links.
MarkdownLinkTreeprocessor([md]) Converts relative links to .md files to .html
class blag.markdown.MarkdownLinkExtension(**kwargs)
markdown.extension that converts relative .md- to .html-links.
__module__ = 'blag.markdown'

extendMarkdown(md: markdown.core.Markdown) -> None
Add the various processors and patterns to the Markdown Instance. This method must be overridden by every extension. Keyword arguments:
•
md: The Markdown instance.



class blag.markdown.MarkdownLinkTreeprocessor(md=None)
Converts relative links to .md files to .html
__module__ = 'blag.markdown'

convert(url: str) -> str

run(root: xml.etree.ElementTree.Element) -> xml.etree.ElementTree.Element
Subclasses of Treeprocessor should implement a run method, which takes a root ElementTree. This method can return another ElementTree object, and the existing root ElementTree will be replaced, or it can modify the current tree and return None.


blag.markdown.convert_markdown(md: markdown.core.Markdown, markdown: str) -> tuple[str, dict[str, str]]
Convert markdown into html and extract meta data.
Some meta data is treated special:
•
date is converted into datetime with local timezone
•
tags is interpreted as a comma-separeted list of strings. All strings are stripped and converted to lower case.


Parameters
•
md -- the Markdown instance
•
markdown -- the markdown text that should be converted

Returns
html and metadata
Return type
str, dict[str, str]


blag.markdown.markdown_factory() -> markdown.core.Markdown
Create a Markdown instance. This method exists only to ensure we use the same Markdown instance for tests as for the actual thing.
Return type
markdown.Markdown


blag.devserver

Development Server.
 
This module provides functionality for blag's development server. It automatically detects changes in certain directories and rebuilds the site if necessary.
 
Functions
autoreload(args) Start the autoreloader.
get_last_modified(dirs) Get the last modified time.
serve(args) Start the webserver and the autoreloader.
blag.devserver.autoreload(args: argparse.Namespace) -> NoReturn
Start the autoreloader. This method monitors the given directories for changes (i.e. the last modified time). If the last modified time has changed, a rebuild is triggered. A rebuild is also performed immediately when this method is called to avoid serving stale contents.
Parameters
args -- contains the input-, template- and static dir


blag.devserver.get_last_modified(dirs: list[str]) -> float
Get the last modified time. This method recursively goes through dirs and returns the most recent modification time time found.
Parameters
dirs -- list of directories to search
Returns
most recent modification time found in dirs
Return type
float


blag.devserver.serve(args: argparse.Namespace) -> None
Start the webserver and the autoreloader.
Parameters
args -- contains the input-, template- and static dir


blag.quickstart

Helper methods for blag's quickstart command.
 
Functions
get_input(question, default) Prompt for user input.
quickstart(args) Quickstart.
blag.quickstart.get_input(question: str, default: str) -> str
Prompt for user input. This is a wrapper around the input-builtin. It will show the default answer in the prompt and -- if no answer was given -- use the default.
Parameters
•
question -- the question the user is presented
•
default -- the default value that will be used if no answer was given

Returns
the answer
Return type
str


blag.quickstart.quickstart(args: argparse.Namespace | None) -> None
Quickstart. This method asks the user some questions and generates a configuration file that is needed in order to run blag.
Parameters
args -- not used


•
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AUTHOR

Bastian Venthur 2022, Bastian Venthur