Web Authoring Tools - tool for mini website from static pages with templates?

Author

tool for mini website from static pages with templates?

2006-04-18, 7:04 pm

What I am looking for goes a bit like this:

o) Basically you write HTML + something.
o) A software compiles the HTML+something into a static website.

The important bit is that the server does not need to do anything
besides delivering the static HTML. All the management is done locally
and copied to the server after an update. There is no database
involved,
just files on the file system.

The +something would support this:

o) To get for example, consistent header and footer, you want some
kind of "include" mechanism that simply inserts a fixed text at the
place of the include.

o) Auto-generated intra-page table of content would be nice,
e.g. guided by <a name="xyz"> tags.

o) Auto-generated "your are here" link that shows the nesting level of
the current page would be nice. Something like

Home >> Voodoo >> Magic >> current software >> download

o) Auto-generated sitemap.

o) Because there is no search possible on static pages, an index very
similar to the one at the end of a book would be nice.

o) Auto-generated tree like navigation guided by the given directory
structure.

A good example of what I am looking for is Javadoc. It fulfills almost
all the points above. But it is not generally applicable.

Then there is webmake and the tools listed on
http://webmake.taint.org/similar.html, but I found none of them
convincing. If you know any more tools, pleaes let me know.

(Yes, I posted a similar message in December, but would like to get an
update.)

Thanks,
Harald.

dk_sz

2006-04-25, 7:11 pm

> o) Basically you write HTML + something.
> o) A software compiles the HTML+something into a static website.
>
> The important bit is that the server does not need to do anything
> besides delivering the static HTML. All the management is done locally
> and copied to the server after an update. There is no database

So, if you have a HTTP server on localhost using SSI
(server side includes), ASP, PHP or something similar...

Well, then you could use a tool like :
http://www.micro-sys.dk/products/website-download/
to download the whole page, images etc. + correct links
(if needed) to relative and then upload that to your
internet server. (the one that does not support SSI etc.)

best regards
Thomas Schulz

Mark Eggers

2006-05-05, 7:18 pm

HK wrote:
> What I am looking for goes a bit like this:
>
> o) Basically you write HTML + something.
> o) A software compiles the HTML+something into a static website.

You might want to look at the Apache Forrest project. It's still
pre-release, and theming the sites can be somewhat challenging.
However, it does a good job of creating the links, managing the site
structure, keeping content and markup separate, and can even generate
PDF files. Forrest is based on Apache's Cocoon, and uses Java for
building and templating.

The home page for Forrest is forrest.apache.org.

Another tool for doing this is the Template Toolkit. I find that
creating themes with this tool is a little easier, but managing table
of contents and relative links is a bit cumbersome. The Template
Toolkit uses Perl.

The home page for the Template Toolkit is www.template-toolkit.org.

For authoring content I primarily use emacs with the XAE (xml
authoring environment) system. Coupled with Forrest's DTDs this
allows me to concentrate on writing while knowing that my documents
will be well-formed.

You can use a variety of XML authoring tools with Forrest. You can
also use OpenOffice, although I don't know how the theming works with
that.

With the Template Toolkit, you're more on your own to create
well-formed documents. I haven't found an editing environment that
provides good help, primarily because the Template Toolkit document
tends to be a mixture of HTML. Perl, and Template Toolkit directives.
I suppose if I could manage the site structure more easily with the
Template Toolkit I might look at learning enough emacs lisp to write
an environment.

/mde/
.. . . . just my two cents