ssg-cli-tool

A command-line interface Static Site Generator (SSG) used for generating a complete HTML web site from raw data and files.

Overview

This tool allows a user to input a text, markdown file path, a directory path or a JSON config file path and an HTML file will be created for the specified file or for every text/markdown file in the specified directory.

Requirements

A recent version of Node.js must be downloaded and installed.

Instructions

1. Install by running the command:

npm install -g ssg-cli-tool

2. Run the SSG tool by inputting a file or folder path.

ssg -i file_path

3. If a file was specified, an HTML file will be created and added into the dist directory. If a directory was specified, HTML files will be created for every text/markdown file in the directory and they will be added into the dist directory.
4. [OPTIONAL] Specify a directory to output the HTML files to by adding the path as a second argument. If the directory does not exist, a new one will be created. If it does exist, the current contents will be deleted and only the HTML files will be added.

ssg -i file_path -o directoryPath

NOTE: This will DELETE the specified directory and create a new one with the same name. DO NOT SPECIFY A DIRECTORY WITH IMPORTANT FILES.

5. [OPTIONAL] Indicate the language to use when generating the lang attribute on the root element in the resulting HTML file(s). Default language is en-CA.

ssg -i testFiles -o randomFolder -l fr

6. [OPTIONAL] Specify a JSON configuration file to use instead of inputting options manually in the command line.

ssg --config .\testFiles\ssg-config.json

Language codes must be ISO 639-1 standard language codes. Which can be found here.

List of Options

Option	Description	Type
-h, --help	Show help	[boolean]
-v, --version	Show version number	[boolean]
-i, --input	File or folder to generate HTML files from	[string]
-o, --output	Specify a different output directory (any existing contents in the directory will be DELETED)	[string]
-l, --lang	HTML language code for resulting HTML file(s)	[string]
-c, --config	Specify a JSON configuration file to use	[string]

Examples

Generate HTML file based off a text or markdown file

ssg -i file_path

Add " " for files with spaces.

ssg -i ".\testFiles\Silver Blaze.txt"

ssg -i ".\testFiles\input MD.md"

Generate HTML files based off of text or markdown files within a directory

ssg -i .\testFiles

Add " " for directories with spaces.

ssg -i ".\test Files"

Specify the output directory

Any existing contents in the directory will be DELETED.

For a File:

ssg -i ".\testFiles\Silver Blaze.txt" -o .\anotherFolder

For a directory:

ssg -i .\testFiles -o .\anotherFolder

Specify a HTML lang attribute for resulting HTML files

ssg --input testFiles --lang en-GB

Specify a JSON config file

ssg --config .\testFiles\configFile.json

Optional Features Implemented

• Title parsed from text and markdown files. It will populate the <title> tag and add a <h1> tag to the top of the body.
• Allow the user to specify a different output directory using --output or -o. If not specified, dist will be used, but if the user specifies a different output path, it will use that. If the directory does not exist, a new directory will be created.
• If the user specifies a folder for the input, it will automatically generate an index.html file, which has relative links to each of the generated HTML files.
• Italicized text parsed from markdown files. It will add a <i> tag to any italicized text.
• Bold text parsed from markdown files. It will add a <strong> tag to any bold text.
• Language code added to generated HTML files using input from the -l/--lang argument.
• Inline code blocks parsed from markdown files. It will add a <code> tag to any inline code block.
• Allows the user to use a JSON formatted configuration file to specify all of their SSG options.