Architekt

Architekt is a dead-simple static site generator powered by Handlebars. It lets you dynamically run code to build page templates into static pages for you to use as documentation sites, static landing pages, etc.

Architekt is heavily inspired by Ruby on Rail's ActionView

Installation

Install Architekt globally from NPM

npm install -g architekt

Getting Started

Start by creating a new project

ark init MyProject # run ark gen -h for more options
cd MyProject

This will create a project skeleton for you to get started with. In the project root, you'll notice the following folders and directories:

• build/ - Directory where the static pages will be put after rendering
• src/ - Contains source code for pages
• architekt.json - Configuration file

You can change where Architekt looks for resources, puts static pages, etc. in the architekt.json config file.

Now, navigate into the src/ directory and take a look at the folders that exist there. Each folder represents a resource that can be used to build your site.

Views

Views contains handlebars templates that will be rendered into web pages. Every template must follow the <page-name>.html.hbs naming convention. The resulting web page will be named <page-name>.html.

Controllers

Controllers contain the logic/data that will be plugged into each view. Controllers may be JSON or JavaScript files and must follow the naming convention <page-name>.[js,json]. When a JavaScript file is used, the module.exports object will be plugged into the page template. Files that start with an underscore will be ignored.

Stylesheets

Architect renders SASS stylesheets for you. All stylesheets must end in .scss or .sass, according to SASS conventions. Stylesheets must be in the stylesheets/ subdirectory within your assets directory. Partial stylesheets must start with an underscore, such as _stylesheet.scss. Partials are not outputted as css stylesheets, but may be imported into other stylesheets. The @import statement resolves stylesheets within the stylesheets/ directory or in node_modules.

Partials

Partials simply contain handlebars partials, and must follow the naming convention _<partial-name>.html.hbs. When using a partial in your pages, omit the leading underscore from the name. Partials must have a leading underscore in their name, otherwise they will be ignored!

Layouts

Layouts are simply advanced partials and are powered by handlebars-layouts. They follow the naming convention <layout-name>.html.hbs. For more information on how to use layouts, see the handlebars-layouts README.

Helpers

Helpers are JavaScript files that export Handlebars helper functions. The name of the file does not matter, as long as it ends in .js. You may export more that one helper function per file.

Rendering Your Site

Once you have written your templates, render the source code into a static site by running

ark render # See ark render -h for command options

Features TODO

The following are features we are planning on adding to Architekt:

• Allowing subdirectories in resource/views/controllers directories
• Assets resource directory support
• SASS language compilation on ark render

Authors

• Donald Isaac

License

Copyright (c) 2019 Open Sourcery. Licensed under the MIT license.