fig

Fig (Feature Image Generator) is a tool that I use to generate feature images for my website's blog evanhalley.dev. Feature images are useful when you need to attach an image to a social media post sharing an article you wrote.

This project has just gotten started and is therefore very light on documentation at the moment.

Install

You must have Nodejs v14.14+ installed to execute fig-cli.

Run npm install @evanhalley/fig to install.

Setup

1. Clone this repository.

2. Run npm install to install the dependencies.

3. Install fig-cli locally: npm link.

4. Execute fig-cli --version and verify a version number is printed to the terminal.

Usage

Fig is a utility that generates feature images for website articles. The images can be used for sharing the article on social media.

You can use this tool in two ways.

Pass in argument's via command line

You want to specify the title, published date, and author's name using the command line.

Usage: fig-cli args [options]

Generates an image using the options specified

Options:
  -t, --title <title>                                             Article's title
  -d, --date <date>                                               Article's published date
  -a, --author <author>                                           Article's author's name
  -h, --html-template <path to the folder containing index.html>  Path to index.html template used to generate your feature image
  -o, --output <name and path to output>                          Name and path of the output file, append with .jpg or .png
  -v, --verbose                                                   Turns on verbose logging
  --help                                                          display help for command

Example usage:

fig-cli args --title "How to do Great Things" --author "Fig Newton" --date 2021-01-09

Read arguments from a text file's frontmatter

You want to retrieve the title, published, and author from the frontmatter embedded in a text file.

Usage: fig-cli fm [options] <input>

Generates an image by parsing metadata from the frontmatter in the input file

Options:
  -o, --output <name and path to output>                          Name and path of the output file, append with .jpg or .png
  -v, --verbose                                                   Turns on verbose logging
  -h, --html-template <path to the folder containing index.html>  Path to index.html template used to generate your feature image
  --help                                                          display help for command

Example usage:

fig-cli fm /Users/fig/blog/posts/how-to-do-great-things.md 

HTML Template

You can specify you own HTML template or use one included with this library. Your HTML template must contain the following placeholders:

• [[TITLE]]: article title will replace this placeholder
• [[AUTHOR]]: article author will replace this placeholder
• [[DATE]]: article published date will replace this placeholder

If you want to specify a template, provide the path to it after the -h / --html-template option. If none is specified, fig will attempt to use an HTML template at ~/.fig/template/index.html. You can include images and CSS as well, but make sure they are accessible by fig so they can be copied to a temporary location before processing.

Attribution

Icons made by Freepik from Flaticon.com