Register additional static content

[bviefhues]

• I have searched the issues (including closed ones) and believe that this is not a duplicate.
• I have searched the documentation and believe that my question is not covered.
• I am willing to lend a hand to help implement this feature.

Feature Request

Expose a method or a function for usage by plugin authors for registering static content, for processing with all "pelican magic".

This should allow plugin authors to implement functionality similar to what {static} or {attach} does in the built-in readers, including:

• specifying a source_path,
• copying file to output,
• accessing the target URL.

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[kdeldycke]

That would be great. I had the exact same issue as I was looking for my theme to automatically adds a couple of assets (favicons in this case) at the root of the generated site.

I hacked my way into Pelican internals and hook a signal to register my assets as static files one by one. See my hack at:
https://github.com/kdeldycke/plumage/blob/ebdc9a5ece646fdc8a30518befdd3092322c9458/plumage/__init__.py#L73-L107

[bviefhues]

I have a working solution, after figuring out how the pelican internals work with each other. This essentially injects my static files into Pelican's static file processing.

1. Register my reader with signals.readers_init.connect
2. Register a helper function with signals.static_generator_finalized.connect
3. In the reader, add the static content as custom keys in the metadata dict.
4. In the helper function get the articles metadata list from the generator context, loop through list and for each custom key:

• Format source_path, save_as and url for the static content file
• Create a new metadata dict by copying the article metadata dict
• Create a new Static object instance
• Append Static object to generator context via generator.context['staticfiles'].append()
• Add custom key to article metadata for url (to make accessible in jinja2)
• setattr same key on article instance (pelican has generated attributes from the metadata already and this needs to be added)

This makes the StaticGenerator processing the added static files

[kdeldycke]

Thanks @bviefhues for the feedback! It really looks like something similar to my solution. Do you have code to share so we can compare? We might create a common utility method to cover that case and eventually propose it to Pelican project.

[avaris]

Commenting here for the record, {static} or {attach} is not handled in Reader stage. They are dealt with after reader processes the file and a Content object is created, which is essentially the generator stage. So, yes, a mixed approach is necessary.

[bviefhues]

@kdeldycke here is a reader I wrote for a small Pelican-powered site: ExifReader. Built for a rather specific use case. We should aim for a more generic solution.

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[justinmayer]

Hi @bviefhues. Would you be willing to help implement a more generic solution, as you proposed?

[bviefhues]

@justinmayer definitelly would like to help. Least i can do is use my tiny website as a testbed.

Also willing to do changes on Pelican itself, if we come to a robust idea on how to implement.

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your participation and understanding.