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Ampoule
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Ampoule
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<a href="/index/software.html" class="tag">software</a>
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<article class="content-area">
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<p>Ampoule is a lightweight, simple yet flexible, static site generator written in Python.
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It uses Jinja2 for templating. This site was generated using Ampoule.
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</p><h2>Features</h2><ul><li><p><strong class="emphasis-2"><em class="emphasis-1">Extremely</em> simple and small</strong>, only a few hundred lines of code.
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</p></li><li><p><em class="emphasis-1">Only</em> depends on Jinja2, Ruamel YAML, bs4, and colorama.
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</p></li><li><p><strong class="emphasis-2">Jinja2 templating</strong> will be familiar to Flask users. Now you can use the same templates for
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both dynamic and static sites.
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</p></li><li><p>More of <strong class="emphasis-2">a framework</strong>. Sites are generated by a short <strong class="emphasis-2">Python script</strong> that you write to customise
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what <strong class="emphasis-2">pages</strong> it loads, which <strong class="emphasis-2">templates</strong> it uses, and what <strong class="emphasis-2">data</strong> it passes to them, or create
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custom <strong class="emphasis-2">filters</strong>, <strong class="emphasis-2">tests</strong> and more.
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</p></li><li><p>Supports <strong class="emphasis-2">YAML front matter</strong> for pages. It can be accessed using indexing syntax.
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</p></li><li><p><strong class="emphasis-2">Indexes</strong> can be sorted using a function, iterated and can index any directory, recursively
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or not. They can also <strong class="emphasis-2">transform URLs</strong> to make them end in ".html".
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</p></li><li><p><strong class="emphasis-2">Object-oriented</strong> design. The same objects used in that script can also be passed to the
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templates.
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</p></li><li><p>Any <strong class="emphasis-2">markup language</strong> can be used, as long as it can be converted to HTML. You just need to
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configure a filter for it. You can even mix multiple markup languages in the same site.
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</p></li><li><p>Ships with a light <strong class="emphasis-2">markdown</strong> implementation.
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</p></li><li><p>Easy to use for <strong class="emphasis-2"><em class="emphasis-1">both</em> programmers and non-programmers</strong>. While you do need a script, you can
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also use an off-the-shelf one.
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</p></li><li><p><strong class="emphasis-2">Themes</strong> can be <em class="emphasis-1">exactly how you want</em>.
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</p></li><li><p>Keeping <strong class="emphasis-2">static files</strong> is easy, because indexes can be static.
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</p></li><li><p>Static files are always <strong class="emphasis-2">binary</strong> and not templated. The same happens for files that can't be
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decoded.
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</p></li><li><p><strong class="emphasis-2">URL</strong>-based definitions. Pages are added using the URL that will be used to access them.
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</p></li><li><p>Reinforces the <strong class="emphasis-2">web</strong> as a <strong class="emphasis-2">publishing medium</strong>. Static sites are not for everyone, but if you
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want to <strong class="emphasis-2">publish</strong> something, it's the best way.
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</p></li><li><p>And GitHub will give you <strong class="emphasis-2">free hosting</strong>, because it's static and <em class="emphasis-1">very cheap to serve</em>.
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Roundabout-host now also offers free hosting for static sites and will soon offer a way to
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generate them using CI and the generator you prefer.
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</p></li><li><p>It's <strong class="emphasis-2">free software</strong> and available under the <strong class="emphasis-2">GPLv3</strong>.
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</p></li><li><p><strong class="emphasis-2">No JavaScript</strong> is required, but it can of course be used if you want.
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</p></li><li><p>Decently <strong class="emphasis-2">fast</strong>: even if you've got a huge site, it should not take more than <em class="emphasis-1">30 seconds</em>.
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Local rebuilding will also be added. And it's still much faster than any dynamic site.
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</p></li><li><p>Beautiful logging thanks to colorama.
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</p></li><li><p>Great for educational use; you can learn <strong class="emphasis-2">Python</strong>, <strong class="emphasis-2">HTML</strong>, <strong class="emphasis-2">CSS</strong>, <strong class="emphasis-2">JavaScript</strong>,
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and <strong class="emphasis-2">Jinja2</strong> all at once.
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</p></li><li><p>You can <strong class="emphasis-2">make your site</strong> in <em class="emphasis-1">an hour</em>, and then it's time to focus on writing what you want
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to publish.
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</p></li><li><p>If you see fit, it's easy to <strong class="emphasis-2">convert</strong> to a dynamic site. A <strong class="emphasis-2">Flask implementation</strong> is
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planned.
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</p></li><li><p>Clear and <strong class="emphasis-2">magic-free</strong>. You can see exactly what's happening and why. No magic, no
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configuration files, no hidden behaviour. The code is so short you can read it.
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</p></li></ul><h2>Minimal example</h2><pre data-language="python">import string
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from datetime import datetime
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import string
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import ampoule_ssg as ampoule
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from ampoule_ssg import markdown
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# Create a site object. This is where we are adding pages to. The argument is the directory
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# where the site will be built.
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site = ampoule.Site("my_site")
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# Use this as "| markdown" in Jinja2 templates to convert any Markdown source to HTML.
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@site.filter("markdown")
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def markdown_filter(text):
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return markdown.markdown2html(text)
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# Make the URLs web-friendly and make it end in ".html" so it will be correctly formatted
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# by dumb servers.
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def article_url(url):
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url = url.lower().rpartition(".")[0]
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new_url = ""
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for i in url:
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if i in string.ascii_lowercase:
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new_url += i
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elif i in string.whitespace:
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new_url += "-"
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return new_url + ".html"
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# Set context that will be passed to all templates. You can still override this.
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site.context["timestamp"] = datetime.now()
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site.context["ampoule"] = ampoule
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# Add the index of articles. In the template, we're looping over it to list them all.
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articles = ampoule.Index("articles", url_transform=article_url, sort_by=lambda x: x.date)
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# This makes it take all indexed files and put them under the /articles URL, keeping the
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# index's URL transformation and placing all of them in the article.html template. This
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# will be passed as "document" to the template.
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site.add_from_index(articles, "/articles", "article.html")
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# Create the main page which has access to the index so it can list all articles.
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main_page = ampoule.Page(site, "home.html", articles=articles)
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# Add the page. Note how we're binding it to a path; it will automatically be set as
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# index.html in that directory, and the URL is site-relative, not the OS root.
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site.add_page("/", main_page)
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# Add static files using a recursive static index. It will add all files in the static
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# directory and all its subdirectories, without putting them into templates. You could
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# still use them in templates, so you can make a photo gallery or something.
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site.add_from_index(
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# We're excluding Markdown files because we're using them as licence information
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# for when the site is distributed together with the fonts. You can exclude any
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# file you want using regex.
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ampoule.Index("static", recursive=True, exclude=r"\.md$", static=True),
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"/static",
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# There is no template, because the index is static.
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)
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# Makes Ampoule take all pages and put them in a directory.
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site.build()
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</pre><h2>More information</h2><h3>Name origin</h3><p>An ampoule is smaller than a flask. Because it is related to Flask (it uses Jinja2) but is
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a much smaller static version of it, the name makes sense.
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</p><h3>What about the other static site generators?</h3><p>There are many static site generators out there, but they all have their own problems.
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In particular, I haven't seen one that uses code to describe the site, rather than a
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configuration file. This makes it much more flexible and powerful.
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</p><p>Also, Ampoule is familiar to Python programmers, because it's written in Python and uses
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Jinja2, a templating engine that is also used in Flask. It's even the smallest static site
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generator:
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</p><ol><li><p>Hugo: written in Go, uses go html/template, and it has 133k lines of Go, not counting
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comments or blanks.
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</p></li><li><p>Jekyll: written in Ruby, uses Liquid, and it has 17300 lines of Ruby, not counting
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comments or blanks. Interestingly, it's got more Markdown than Ruby.
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</p></li><li><p>Gatsby: they call it a framework, and rightfully so, because it's overkill for actually
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static (i.e. for publishing content) sites, even though JS people use it for precisely that
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purpose. It's written in JavaScript, uses React, and it's git 380k lines of JavaScript and
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TypeScript combined. (For comparison, it's over 1/100 of Linux itself, which is HUGE considering
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it uses a high-level language and only has to do so much.)
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</p></li><li><p>Pelican: written in Python, uses Jinja2, and it has 12400 lines of Python, not counting
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comments or blanks.
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</p></li><li><p>Docusaurus: written in TypeScript, uses React (of course, because it's made by Facebook),
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and it has 140k lines of TypeScript and JavaScript combined.
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</p></li><li><p>VuePress: written in JavaScript, uses Vue, and it has 11k lines of JavaScript, Vue and
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TypeScript combined.
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</p></li><li><p>Zola: written in Rust, uses Tera, and it has 17k lines of Rust, not counting comments or
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blanks. Also, it's designed to be monolithic and not extensible at all.
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</p></li></ol><p>Whereas I have only got 750 lines of Python, not counting comments or blanks. Add the script
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to generate the site, and it's still under 1000 lines.
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</p><p>I don't want to criticise other static site generators, they all do some things well, but
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they're not what I want. I want a simple, small, flexible and versatile static site generator
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that is low-maintenance and easy to use. I don't know about you, but maybe you want the same
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thing.
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</p><p>The JS-based ones are particularly unsuitable for most people, because they're slow, bloated,
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hard to install, and most often actually generate an SPA, which is not what you want for a
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blog or documentation or web book or anything like that.
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</p><h3>Why generated static sites?</h3><p>If you don't want generated static sites, you've got two other options.
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</p><h4>Dynamic sites</h4><ul><li><p>bloated;
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</p></li><li><p>slow;
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</p></li><li><p>requires smart server;
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</p></li><li><p>requires maintenance;
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</p></li><li><p>requires security;
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</p></li><li><p>requires a database;
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</p></li><li><p>hard to post content;
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</p></li><li><p>databases can't be managed with git;
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</p></li><li><p>hard to import content;
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</p></li><li><p>no free hosting;
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</p></li></ul><h4>Static sites</h4><ul><li><p>hard to manage layouts;
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</p></li><li><p>hard to list the content;
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</p></li><li><p>hard to update indexes;
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</p></li><li><p>no support for metadata;
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</p></li><li><p>markup languages must be manually converted;
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</p></li></ul><p>With a <em class="emphasis-1">generated</em> static site, you get the best of both worlds. It's the best publishing
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platform, because it's just files, but it still provides the convenience of just writing
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content and having it magically appear on the site and formatted correctly.
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</p><h2>How to install</h2><p>Please note that this is not yet available on PyPI. For now you'll need to download the code
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(ideally using git) and install it with <code>pip</code> as a local package by giving it the path to the
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directory containing <code>setup.py</code>.
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</p><h2>Full documentation</h2><p>To demonstrate just how easy it is, the docs can all fit on one page.
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</p><h3>class <code>ampoule_ssg.Site</code></h3><p><code>Site</code> is the main class of Ampoule; it represents a single website. It is responsible for
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handling added pages, the template engine and features, as well as building it.
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</p><h4>def <code>__init__(self, build_dir: typing.Union[str, bytes, os.PathLike], template_dir: typing.Union[str, bytes, os.PathLike] = "templates")</code></h4><p>Create a new site object. <code>build_dir</code> is the directory where the site will be built.
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<code>template_dir</code> is the directory where the templates are stored. Both are relative to the
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script current working directory.
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</p><h4>def <code>add_page(self, location: typing.Union[str, bytes, os.PathLike], page: typing.union[Static, Page])</code></h4><p>Add a page object to the site at the server-relative URL <code>location</code>. The page object can be
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either a <code>Static</code> or a <code>Page</code>.
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</p><h4>def <code>add_from_index(self, index: Index, location: typing.Union[str, bytes, os.PathLike], template: str = None, **kwargs)</code></h4><p>Add all pages from an index to the site with the root at the server-relative URL <code>location</code>.
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The pages will be rendered with the template <code>template</code> and the context <code>kwargs</code>. will be
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passed to all of them. If the index is static, the pages will not be rendered with a template,
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but rather copied as-is.
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</p><p>For each page, the <code>document</code> object found in the index will be passed to the template under
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that name.
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</p><h4>def <code>filter(self, name: str)</code></h4><p>A decorator that registers a filter function with the site. The function should take at least
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one argument, the value to be filtered, and return the filtered value.
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</p><h4>def <code>test(self, name: str)</code></h4><p>A decorator that registers a test function with the site. The function should take at least
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one argument, the value to be tested, and return a boolean.
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</p><h4>def <code>build(self, dont_delete: typing.Optional[list[str]] = None)</code></h4><p>Build (save) the site to the build directory it was constructed with. This will create the
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directory if it does not exist, clear it (but not delete it) and then write all the pages.
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You can set <code>dont_delete</code> to a list of files that should not be deleted when the directory
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is cleared, for example, the <code>.git</code>.
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</p><h4><code>context: dict[str, typing.Any]</code></h4><p>A dictionary containing names that are available to all pages. It can be overriden by the
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page's context or modified at any time.
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</p><h3>class <code>ampoule_ssg.Page(str)</code></h3><p><code>Page</code> is a class that represents a single page on the site. A page is composed of a
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template, a document and a context.
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</p><h4>def <code>__new__(cls, site: Site, template: str, document: Document = None, **kwargs)</code></h4><p>Create a new page object. <code>site</code> is the site object that the page belongs to. <code>template</code> is
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the template the document will be put in. <code>document</code> is the document object that will be
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passed to the template. <code>kwargs</code> are names that will be available to the template for
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additional context.
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</p><p>If there's no document, it will not be available to the template. This is useful for single
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pages with fully static content, like a contact page.
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</p><h3>class <code>ampoule_ssg.Static(bytes)</code></h3><p><code>Static</code> is a class that represents a single static file on the site. A static file is
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just the content, in binary format, and it doesn't use templating.
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</p><h4>def <code>__new__(cls, site: Site, document: Document)</code></h4><p>Create a new static object. <code>site</code> is the site object that the static file belongs to.
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<code>document</code> is the document object that will be written to the file; it can contain any
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encoding, even text, and will be written as-is.
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</p><h3>class <code>ampoule_ssg.Index</code></h3><p>An index is a collection of documents that can be iterated over or added to a site using
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a common template (see <code>ampoule_ssg.Site.add_from_index</code>).
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</p><h4>def <code>__init__(self, directory: typing.Union[str, bytes, os.PathLike], recursive: bool = False, url_transform: typing.Callable = lambda x: x, sort_by: typing.Callable = lambda x: x.file_name, exclude: typing.Union[str, NoneType] = None, static: bool = False)</code></h4><p>Create a new index. <code>directory</code> is the directory to get content from. If <code>recursive</code> is
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true, the whole tree of that directory will be indexed. <code>url_transform</code> is a function that
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will be applied to the file name to get the new file name. Generally you want to set it so
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it makes them end in <code>.html</code> so dumb servers can serve them correctly. However, for static
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files you most likely will not set it. <code>sort_by</code> is the key after which to sort the
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documents after they are indexed; by default it is the file name. <code>exclude</code> is a regular
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expression that will be used to exclude files from the index. If the index is <code>static</code>,
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all documents will be parsed as-is, without removing front matter.
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</p><h4>def <code>__iter__(self)</code></h4><p>Return an iterator for the index.
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</p><h4>def <code>__next__(self)</code></h4><p>Get the next document in the index.
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</p><h4>def <code>__repr__(self)</code></h4><p>Return a string representation of the index. It contains the directory and the names
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of the documents in it.
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</p><h4>def <code>__len__(self)</code></h4><p>Return the number of documents in the index, that is, its length.
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</p><h3>class <code>ampoule_ssg.Document</code></h3><p>A document is a file, not rendered, but available for use. It is what is passed to the
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template as <code>document</code> for processing. Generally, you won't create these yourself, but
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rather use them as they are returned by an index. However, if you do need one, you can
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create it manually and pass it to a page.
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</p><p>Documents will parse YAML front matter for textual files, unless disabled. The front matter
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is available as an attribute of the document, and can be accessed using indexing syntax.
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</p><h4>def <code>__init__(self, file_name: typing.Union[str, bytes, os.PathLike], url_transform: typing.Callable = lambda x: x, front_matter_enabled: bool = True)</code></h4><p>Create a new document. <code>file_name</code> is the name of the file. <code>url_transform</code> is a function
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that will be applied to the file name to get the new file name; it has the same meaning as
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in the <code>Index</code>. <code>front_matter_enabled</code> is a boolean that determines whether the document
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will parse YAML front matter.
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</p><h4>def <code>__repr__(self)</code></h4><p>Return a string containing <code>Document</code> and the file name.
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</p><h4>def <code>__getitem__(self, item: str)</code></h4><p>Access the document's front matter. If front matter is disabled or not available, this will
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never work.
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</p><h4>def <code>__setitem__(self, item: str, value: typing.Any)</code></h4><p>Change the document's front matter. It works even if it wasn't parsed, because YAML
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behaves like a dictionary.
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</p><h4>def <code>__delitem__(self, item: str)</code></h4><p>Delete an item from the document's front matter.
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</p><h4>def <code>__contains__(self, item: str)</code></h4><p>Check if an item is in the document's front matter.
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</p><h2>Licence</h2><p>This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of
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the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3
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of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
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</p><p>This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY;
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without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See
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the GNU General Public License for more details.
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</p><p>You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program.
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If not, see <a href="https://www.gnu.org/licenses/">https://www.gnu.org/licenses/</a>.
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</p>
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</article>
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<p>Page generated on Sunday, 2 February 2025 at 21:30:11</p>
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<p xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#" >This work is marked with <a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/?ref=chooser-v1" target="_blank" rel="license noopener noreferrer" style="display:inline-block;">CC0 1.0 Universal</a> (🄍). No rights reserved.</p>
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<p>Hosted at <a href="https://roundabout-host.com/roundabout">Roundabout-host</a> using the static site service, and generated with <a href="/projects/ampoule.html">Ampoule</a>.</p>
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