Includes, rsync and Variables - Oh My!

Fri, 08 Jul 2022

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Even though pblog was just launched a week ago, it has since been updated with some nice quality-of-life improvements.

Default “header” & “footer” Includes

A new variable was added to the main pblog.sh configuration file called INC_HEAD_FOOT. By default this is set to true and simply pulls in two HTML files:

_header.html: all content within is placed directly after the opening body tag
_footer.html: all content within is placed directly before the closing body tag

These includes are added to every outputted file from inside both the posts and pages directories on build.

Syncing Changes with rsync

Although it adds another dependency to the project, I believe utilizing rsync for the generated files is far better then nuking the directory from orbit each time. This also provides a cleaner experience for users syncing their _output directory with their web server of choice.

On the Horizon…

My plan was to also tackle the issue of “auto rebuilds” when running pblog locally. This became more of a headache than I initially estimated - so it was dropped from this patch. My hope is to get something up-and-running in the near future, while avoiding the inclusion of yet another major dependency. Anyone more experienced than myself in the ways of “auto rebuilds” is free to open a patch if they so desire!

Thanks for your interest in these minor updates!

P.S. Don’t forget - if your website runs on pblog be sure to reach out and get it featured on the homepage!