Applying a set of transformations to all markdown files and creating a new summary html file. #60

vigneshc · 2021-02-22T02:54:56Z

vigneshc
Feb 22, 2021

I am new to Statiq, I got the based Markdown to html working with Framework. I would like to add the following

Add a header and footer for all markdown files, based on what is in the front matter.
Generate a New html that summarizes these markdown files, it doesn't have a corresponding input file.

Todo both it looks like I would have to write cshtml. But I am having trouble connecting the cshtml to the .md files. Also, how do I branch and do different a pipeline and do different set of actions for a subset of files. I see that cleanblog does some of this, but couldn't figure out how with reasonable time.

daveaglick · 2021-03-02T19:56:05Z

daveaglick
Mar 2, 2021
Maintainer

Todo both it looks like I would have to write cshtml

That's probably the easiest way right now. Statiq actually supports several template engines, though not all of them are great at being "outer" layouts. The way Statiq Web is set up out-of-the-box is to run every .md file through the Markdown renderer and then through the Razor engine:

.md (input file) -> Markdown engine -> Razor engine -> .html (output file)

If there are no .cshtml files in the input folder, then the Razor engine is still run but results in nothing changing since the output from the Markdown renderer is plain HTML. The key thing to understand here is that the Razor engine will pick up on layouts though, even for the Markdown files. So the trick is to create a Razor layout and tell the Markdown files to use it when they run through the Razor engine. The CleanBlog theme is a good example of this, but you can do it for your own sites too. The trick is to add a _Layout.cshtml file to your input folder that contains the overall layout for all your pages:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  ...
</head>
<body>
  ...
  <div>@RenderBody()</div>
  ...
</body>
</html>

The @RenderBody() call is Razor syntax for "render the actual content here".

Add a header and footer for all markdown files, based on what is in the front matter.

This is where the layout comes in handy. You could add different layouts for different types of documents, but it may be easier to add everything to a single layout for now. The key to understanding this part is that Document in a property in the Razor page that contains the current document, and the current document acts like a dictionary with all the front matter and other metadata you've added.

So to add a footer with values from your front matter, you might write something like this:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  ...
</head>
<body>
  ...
  <div>@RenderBody()</div>
  ...
  <div>
    <p>This is the footer</p>
    @{
      string author = Document.GetString("Author");
      if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(author))
      {
        <p><strong>Author: </strong> @author</p>
      }
    }
  </div>
</body>
</html>

Note that the CleanBlog theme already contains some support for this kind of thing and you only need to create a _post-footer.cshtml file in your input folder to specify a specific footer for blog posts. If nothing else, it might serve as an example of how to create a more complex set of Razor layouts.

Generate a New html that summarizes these markdown files, it doesn't have a corresponding input file.

This is a perfect example of the archives feature. You can create a Razor file and specify which other files it should traverse using front matter. Then you use Razor syntax to render lists or other summary data. The documentation contains several archives examples.

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Applying a set of transformations to all markdown files and creating a new summary html file. #60

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Statiq

Applying a set of transformations to all markdown files and creating a new summary html file. #60

vigneshc Feb 22, 2021

Replies: 1 comment

daveaglick Mar 2, 2021 Maintainer

vigneshc
Feb 22, 2021

daveaglick
Mar 2, 2021
Maintainer