parcel-plugin-ssg

Adds basic static site generator functionality to Parcel

Tries to supports any consolidate.js template engine on top of the built-in PostHTML functionality. See official support for guaranteed support.

Usage

Add the plugin to your project as a dependency:

npm install parcel-plugin-ssg posthtml-expressions --save

Update or add a posthtml.config.js to the root of your project with the following contents:

module.exports = (ctx) => {
    return {
        plugins: {
            'posthtml-expressions': {locals: ctx.locals}
        }
    }
}

Now you can start using the following features:

• Consolidate.js template engines
• Front matter
• Global data through data files

Output files

This plugin modifies Parcel's output behaviour for supported assets that output HTML files, in order to generate valid file structures for websites.

For example, while example.html would be output to example.html normally, in this case it is output as example/index.html to enable proper URL structures for a website.

Consolidate.js Template Engines

To use a consolidate.js compatible template engine, simply create a new asset with a valid file extension for that engine.

View the extension map for more details.

Front matter

Front matter is structured data at the top of a valid asset type that will output HTML.

It allows you to define data to be used inside of your asset to dynamically generate markup, keep your content DRY, and setup custom display logic.

Front matter is defined as YAML at the top of the asset, with an opening and closing delimiter ---. E.g:

example.njk

---
title: My example page
description: This is my example page
list:
 - item 1
 - item 2
 - item 3
---
<h1>{{ title }}</h1>
<p>{{ descroption }}</h2>
<ul>
{% for item in list %}
    <li>{{ item }}</li>
{% endfor %}

Becomes:

example/index.html

<h1>My example page</h1>
<p>This is my example page</p>
<ul>
    <li>item 1</li>
    <li>item 2</li>
    <li>item 3</li>
</ul>

Global data through data files

Global data can also be made available to all supported asset types using data files.

Data files are any asset found in the root directory of your Parcel project matching the following asset types:

• CSV
• JSON/JSON5
• YAML
• TOML
• JavaScript (only if the file exports an object).

Data files are made available through a globals variable in your HTML-output assets, and are accessible by their file path, relative from the Parcel project root.

Some examples:

If you had a JSON file accessible from the root at example.json:

example.json

{
    "exampleVal": true
}

exampleVal can be accessed in your views using globals.example.exampleVal.

If you had a JSON file accessible from the root at data/example.json:

data/example.json

{
    "exampleVal": true
}

exampleVal can be accessed in your views using globals.data.example.exampleVal.

If you had a JSON file accessible from the root at admin/public/example.json:

admin/public/example.json

{
    "exampleVal": true
}

exampleVal can be accessed in your views using globals.admin.public.example.exampleVal.

Caveats

Please be aware that if you have two sibling assets with the same name, their data will be combined in the order that Parcel finds them.

For example, if you had a JSON and YAML file accessible from the root at example.json and example.yaml, they will be combined. Any identical keys will be overwritten.

Configuring engines

Each consolidate engine can be configured by adding a valid configuration file for that engine to the root of your project, following the conventions:

• .{{ engine }}rc
  • Must be a valid JSON object of the engine's standard config
• .{{ engine }}.js
  • Must export:
    • a JavaScript object of the engine's standard config
    • a function that rteurns a JavaScript object of the engine's standard config

E.g, for nunjucks you can add a .nunjucksrc or .nunjucks.js to the root of your project to configure the engine.

.nunjucksrc:

{
    "autoescape": true,
    "throwOnUndefined": false,
    "trimBlocks": false,
    "lstripBlocks": false,
    "tags": {
        "blockStart": '<%',
        "blockEnd": '%>',
        "variableStart": '<$',
        "variableEnd": '$>',
        "commentStart": '<#',
        "commentEnd": '#>'
    }
}

.nunjucks.js:

module.exports = () => {
    return {
        autoescape: true,
        throwOnUndefined: false,
        trimBlocks: false,
        lstripBlocks: false,
        tags: {
            blockStart: '<%',
            blockEnd: '%>',
            variableStart" '<$',
            variableEnd: '$>',
            commentStart: '<#',
            commentEnd: '#>'
        }
    }
}

Official support

Currently the following consolidate.js template engines are officially supported:

• Nunjucks