Crunch is a python based command line utility that allows for manual rebuilding of posts, index pages, error pages and the home page. It also supports parsing email to create new posts. It was created to run amdavidson.com.
Usage (from crunch.py --help):
usage: crunch.py [-h] [--all] [--clean] [--dependencies] [--email] [--error]
[--extras] [--feed] [--galleries] [--home] [--indexes]
[--new] [--no-http] [--pages] [--posts] [--serve] [--setup]
[--single SINGLE] [--verbose]
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--all Builds the entire site.
--clean Empties the build folder.
--dependencies Builds all the dependencies, ignored unless used with
--single, --new, or --email.
--email Reads an email message from STDIN and parses to create a
new post. Overrides --all, --posts, --indexes, --home, and
--single
--error Generates static error pages.
--extras Generates minified css and js files.
--feed Generates RSS feed.
--galleries Generates galleries.
--home Builds the home page.
--indexes Builds the index pages.
--new Starts an interactive sesson to create a new post. *Not yet
implemented*
--no-http Prevents crunch from contacting external sources during the
build.
--pages Builds all static pages.
--posts Builds all posts.
--serve Starts a lightweight HTTP server to serve build folder to
localhost. Not intended for production use.
--setup Creates a basic blog framework to start with. *Not yet
implemented.*
--single SINGLE Builds a single post. Takes a filename as an argument or
use - to read from STDIN. Overrides all other build instructions.
*Not yet implemented.*
--verbose Enables information display other than errors.
The configuration is stored in a file called conf.yaml in the same directory as crunch.
An example configuration follows:
# extension defines the extension to be used by all the post files.
extension: .md
# server_port defines the port to be used by the built in web server.
server_port: 8000
# server_redirect_htm enables a redirect of ####/##/slug to ####/##/slug.htm for permalink compatibility.
server_redirect_htm: True
# email_sender defines the address that all post emailed into the system should come from. set to nil to allow anyone to post.
email_sender: andrew@amdavidson.com
# email_receiver defines the address that posts are sent to and that the confirmation email should be sent from.
email_receiver: no-reply@amd.im
### Site Configuration
title: my awesome blog
tagline: writing on the web, so you don't have to.
author: You!
description: I love blogging!
base_url: http://awesomeblog.com/
build_folder: built
posts_folder: posts
public_folder: public
images_folder: images
galleries_folder: galleries
css_folder: css
scripts_folder: scripts
home_count: 5
image_width: 640
image_height: 640
A series of directories are used to structure the content used by crunch to generate the blog.
The most important is the posts directory which uses a series of folders indicating the year with subfolders for the month. Files inside those subfolders are processed to create individual posts and the folder structure is used to layout the site.
The images folder can be used to store images for the site layout and for the posts themselves. The images/posts folder is used by the email parser to store images that it encounters.
The galleries folder is not yet used. In the future this will be used to statically generate image galleries.
After running crunch the build folder (built in the above conf.yaml) will house the
generated site and can be rsync'ed to the server for use.
It is in a very heavy state of development, but currently will create a fairly well functioning site. More to come...