Goldsmith

Goldsmith is a fast and easily extensible static website generator written in Go. In contrast to many other generators, Goldsmith does not force any design paradigms or file organization rules on the user, making it possible to generate anything from blogs to image galleries using the same tool.

Tutorial

Goldsmith does not use any configuration files, and all behavior customization happens in code. Goldsmith uses the builder pattern to establish a chain, which modifies files as they pass through it. Although the Goldsmith API is short and (hopefully) easy to understand, it is often best to learn by example:

1. Start by copying files from a source directory to a destination directory (the simplest possible use case):

   var gs goldsmith.Goldsmith
   gs.Begin(srcDir). // read files from srcDir
       End(dstDir)   // write files to dstDir
   

2. Now let's convert any Markdown files to HTML fragments (while still copying the rest), using the Markdown plugin:

   var gs goldsmith.Goldsmith
   gs.Begin(srcDir).          // read files from srcDir
       Chain(markdown.New()). // convert *.md files to *.html files
       End(dstDir)            // write files to dstDir
   

3. If we have any front matter in our Markdown files, we need to extract it using the, FrontMatter plugin:

   var gs goldsmith.Goldsmith
   gs.Begin(srcDir).             // read files from srcDir
       Chain(frontmatter.New()). // extract frontmatter and store it as metadata
       Chain(markdown.New()).    // convert *.md files to *.html files
       End(dstDir)               // write files to dstDir
   

4. Next, we should run our barebones HTML through a template to add elements like a header, footer, or a menu; for this we can use the Layout plugin:

   var gs goldsmith.Goldsmith
   gs.Begin(srcDir).             // read files from srcDir
       Chain(frontmatter.New()). // extract frontmatter and store it as metadata
       Chain(markdown.New()).    // convert *.md files to *.html files
       Chain(layout.New()).      // apply *.gohtml templates to *.html files
       End(dstDir)               // write files to dstDir
   

5. Now, let's minify our files to reduce data transfer and load times for our site's visitors using the Minify plugin:

   var gs goldsmith.Goldsmith
   gs.Begin(srcDir).             // read files from srcDir
       Chain(frontmatter.New()). // extract frontmatter and store it as metadata
       Chain(markdown.New()).    // convert *.md files to *.html files
       Chain(layout.New()).      // apply *.gohtml templates to *.html files
       Chain(minify.New()).      // minify *.html, *.css, *.js, etc. files
       End(dstDir)               // write files to dstDir
   

6. Debugging problems in minified code can be tricky, so let's use the Condition filter to make minification occur only when we are ready for distribution.

   var gs goldsmith.Goldsmith
   gs.Begin(srcDir).                    // read files from srcDir
       Chain(frontmatter.New()).        // extract frontmatter and store it as metadata
       Chain(markdown.New()).           // convert *.md files to *.html files
       Chain(layout.New()).             // apply *.gohtml templates to *.html files
       FilterPush(condition.New(dist)). // push a dist-only conditional filter onto the stack
       Chain(minify.New()).             // minify *.html, *.css, *.js, etc. files
       FilterPop().                     // pop off the last filter pushed onto the stack
       End(dstDir)                      // write files to dstDir
   

7. Now that we have all of our plugins chained up, let's look at a complete example which uses DevServer to bootstrap a complete development sever which automatically rebuilds the site whenever source files are updated.

   package main
   
   import (
       "flag"
       "log"
   
       "git.foosoft.net/alex/goldsmith"
       "git.foosoft.net/alex/goldsmith/devserver"
       "git.foosoft.net/alex/goldsmith/filters/condition"
       "git.foosoft.net/alex/goldsmith/plugins/frontmatter"
       "git.foosoft.net/alex/goldsmith/plugins/layout"
       "git.foosoft.net/alex/goldsmith/plugins/markdown"
       "git.foosoft.net/alex/goldsmith/plugins/minify"
   )
   
   type builder struct {
       dist bool
   }
   
   func (b *builder) Build(srcDir, dstDir, cacheDir string) {
       var gs goldsmith.Goldsmith
       errs := gs.Begin(srcDir).              // read files from srcDir
           Chain(frontmatter.New()).          // extract frontmatter and store it as metadata
           Chain(markdown.New()).             // convert *.md files to *.html files
           Chain(layout.New()).               // apply *.gohtml templates to *.html files
           FilterPush(condition.New(b.dist)). // push a dist-only conditional filter onto the stack
           Chain(minify.New()).               // minify *.html, *.css, *.js, etc. files
           FilterPop().                       // pop off the last filter pushed onto the stack
           End(dstDir)                        // write files to dstDir
   
       for _, err := range errs {
           log.Print(err)
       }
   }
   
   func main() {
       port := flag.Int("port", 8080, "server port")
       dist := flag.Bool("dist", false, "final dist mode")
       flag.Parse()
   
       devserver.DevServe(&builder{*dist}, *port, "content", "build", "cache")
   }
   

Samples

Below are some examples of Goldsmith usage which can used to base your site on:

• Basic Sample: a great starting point, this is the sample site from the tutorial.
• Bootstrap Sample: a slightly more advanced sample using Bootstrap.
• FooSoft.net: I've been "dogfooding" Goldsmith by using it to generate my homepage for nearly a decade.

Components

A growing set of plugins, filters, and other tools are provided to make it easier to get started with Goldsmith.

Plugins

• Absolute: Convert relative HTML file references to absolute paths.
• Breadcrumbs: Generate metadata required to build breadcrumb navigation.
• Collection: Group related pages into named collections.
• Document: Enable simple DOM modification via an API similar to jQuery.
• Forward: Create simple redirections for pages that have moved to a new URL.
• FrontMatter: Extract the JSON, YAML, or TOML metadata stored in your files.
• Index: Create metadata for directory file listings and generate directory index pages.
• Layout: Transform your HTML files with Go templates.
• LiveJs: Inject JavaScript code to automatically reload pages when modified.
• Markdown: Render Markdown documents as HTML fragments.
• Minify: Remove superfluous data from a variety of web formats.
• Pager: Split arrays of metadata into standalone pages.
• Rule: Update metadata and filter files based on paths.
• Summary: Extract summary and title metadata from HTML files.
• Syndicate: Generate RSS, Atom, and JSON feeds from existing metadata.
• Syntax: Enable syntax highlighting for pre-formatted code blocks.
• Tags: Generate tag clouds and indices from file metadata.
• Thumbnail: Build thumbnails for a variety of common image formats.

Filters

• Condition: Filter files based on a single condition.
• Operator: Join filters using logical AND, OR, and NOT operators.
• Wildcard: Filter files using path wildcards (*, ?, etc.)

Other

• DevServer: Simple framework for building, updating, and viewing your site.
• Harness: Unit test harness for verifying Goldsmith plugins and filters.