henshin

Henshin

Yes it's another static site generator. Out of the box it's set up for blogging but henshin is so flexible and configurable it is useful in most situations where you need to generate a static site from some data.

Usage

First install the gem (it requires ruby 1.9.3),

$ gem install henshin

Next create an empty site,

$ henshin new my_site

Now we can start a server to view the site,

$ cd my_site
$ henshin view
...

Henshin rebuilds the pages when requested so edit index.slim.html and reload the page now.

To build the site into the build folder, run:

$ henshin build

But one of the key features of henshin is that you (probably) never need to run henshin build. Henshin can upload your site straight to a server using sftp. To set it up you just need to add this to the config.yml file,

publish:
  host: sftp.myserver.com
  base: /path/to/public
  user: username

And when running henshin publish you will be prompted for the password.

Structure

Sites have a lot in common. Henshin forces some conventions but not too many.

./config.yml

Contains configuration and data for your site. Anything in here is accessible in templates and files. For instance you could add,

likes:
- Italian food
- Football
- ...

So that you can add a list of things you like to the homepage,

ul
  h1 I like
  - for like in site.likes
    li = like

./init.rb

This file lets you alter Henshin in any way you imagine.

./posts/

These are your published posts. They must contain yaml frontmatter with at least title and date attributes.

---
title:  My First Post
date:   2012-01-01
---

So, ...

./drafts/

These are your unpublished posts and will not be in your built site. They are shown when previewing your site with henshin view so it is easy to see what they will look like when finished.

./templates/

Most files will try to use a template, the default template used is called "default", posts will attempt to use the "post" template if it exists. And you can force a file to use a different template by setting template: in the yaml frontmatter, for instance

---
...
template: strange
---
...

./assets/scripts/

Contains scripts (these can be javascript or coffeescript). They are combined and minimised when you build your site.

./assets/styles/

Contains stylesheet files (css, sass, scss or less files). Like scripts they are combined and minimised when you build your site.

Configuration

Extending/Hacking

...