Ambercat

Stupidly simple static site generator based on Vue.js and Tailwind CSS.

How to Install

Init your npm project first:

npm init <your-blog-directory> && cd <your-blog-directory>

then add this repo as local dependency:

npm install ambercat --save

then run this command to init blog project:

npx ambercat init

Run Dev Server

To start dev server, run:

npx ambercat dev

For local development, the homepage will be accessible on http://localhost:3000.

If you want to preview your blog on your device, you can use the public url which will be printed on your command line. Make sure that your device and your computer are connected to the same network.

Every changes to theme and posts will be triggering browser reload across devices.

Add a Post

To add a post, run:

npx ambercat post <your post title>

By default, the command will create YYYY-MM-DD-your-post-title/index.md file in your src/posts directory. The date prefix will be used to determine the post date.

Every index.md file will be generated into /your-post-title.html path.

Build Static Site

To build static site, run:

npx ambercat build

Static site files will be generated in your build directory. You can upload them to Github Pages or your chosen web service.

Ambercat doesn't provide you with any kind of deployment flow so you need to configure it yourself.

Customize Your Blog UI

All of UI code are stored inside of src directory. Pay attention that there are two kind of entry files:

1. entry-client.js. This file will be used to build js file to be served along with your static site.
2. entry-server.js. This file will be used to generate the static site. In most cases, you don't need to work with this file.

HomePage

The HomePage.vue component will accept data object with properties below:

Name	Type	Description
url	String	Url of homepage
data	Object { posts[], title }	Contains array of posts and title of homepage

The data.posts contains an array of the most recent posts with these properties:

Name	Type	Description
url	String	Url of the post
content	String	Content HTML of the post
data.title	String	Title of the post
data.summary	String	Summary of the post. Can be empty
data.date	String	Date of the post
data.path	String	Path to the post
data.readingTime	Object	Reading time estimation. The values are { String: text, Int: minutes, Int: time, Int: words }
data.language	String	Language of the post
data.translations	Array[Object]	Collection of transactions for the post. The values are { name: String, code: String, path: String }. This property is only available for a post which has translation(s).
data.originalPostPath	String	Original post. This property is only available for translation post.

PostPage

The PostPage.vue component will accept these properties:

Name	Type	Description
url	String	Url of the post
content	String	Content HTML of the post
data.title	String	Title of the post
data.summary	String	Summary of the post. Can be empty
data.date	String	Date of the post
data.path	String	Path to the post
data.readingTime	Object	Reading time estimation. The values are { String: text, Int: minutes, Int: time, Int: words }
data.language	String	Language of the post
data.translations	Array[Object]	Collection of transactions for the post. The values are { name: String, code: String, path: String }. This property is only available for a post which has translation(s).
data.originalPostPath	String	Original post. This property is only available for translation post.
data.newerPost	Object	Contains newer post with the same properties as PostPage
data.olderPost	Object	Contains older post with the same properties as PostPage

Add a new static page

Create your custom static page component on src/components directory, then edit src/router.js.

// src/router.js
...
  routes: [
    {
      path: '/',
      component: Homepage,
    },
    {
      path: '/index.html',
      component: Homepage,
    },
    {
      path: '/404.html',
      component: FourOhFourPage,
    },
    {
      // .html extension is important
      path: '/your-custom-static-page.html',
      component: YourCustomStaticPage,
    },
  ],
...

On your ambercat.config.js, register new static pages by adding it into staticPages property.

// ambercat.config.js

module.exports = {
  ...
  staticPages: [
    { filename: 'index', title: 'Ambercat', description: '....', numOfPosts: 5 },
    { filename: '404', title: '404' },
    { filename: 'your-custom-static-page', title: 'Your custom static page', numOfPosts: 'all' },
  ],
  ...
};

The title values will be used to set title page. The filename should be matched with the route you just registered on src/router.js. The optional description value will be used for meta description on your page. The value of numOfPosts can be an integer or string 'all' if you want to make data.posts accessible on your static page component.

Customize tailwind.js

The default configurations from the original tailwind init have mostly been edited following to the default theme design. However, the edited values are left commented so you can easily enable them later. Refer to https://tailwindcss.com/docs/configuration for further guideline.

Enable Syntax Highlighter

Syntax highlighter is disabled by default. To enable it, register languages on syntaxLanguages key on ambercat.config.js. Refer to this page for supported language.

// ambercat.config.js

module.exports = {
  // ..
  syntaxLanguages: ['html', 'css', 'javascript'],
};

Configuration

All of project configurations are stored in ambercat.config.js file and should be self explanatory. Below are descriptions for advanced usage.

Webpack

You can add your webpack config by using configureWebpack hook. The returned object will be merged with internal webpack configuration. Use isServer flag to avoid misconfiguration.

This hook should always return an object if you decide to use it. If you don't need to add anything, simply exclude it from your configuration.

Asset Injector

Sometimes you want to add extra scripts like analytics or css tags on template. However, it is forbidden to add it via Vue.js component. By its nature, Vue.js will reject tags with side-effects like <script> and <link>. By using assetInjector hook, you can add your extras without messing with Vue.js compilation process. Below are parameters which assetInjector accepts.

Param	Type	Description
assetType	String	Determine asset type ('css' or 'js')
pageType	String	Determine page type ('page' for regular static page, and 'post' for article page)

This hook should always return a string if you decide to use it. If you don't need to add anything, simply exclude it from your configuration.

Transform a Post

Ambercat use markdown-it to render your post text. The simplest way to add more features is by adding markdown-it plugins to markdownPlugins array on ambercat.config.js.

module.exports = {
  // ...
  markdownPlugins: [
    require('markdown-it-emoji'),
    require('markdown-it-highlight-lines'),
    // ... or add more plugins
  ],
  // ...
}

You can also extend the markdown renderer further by using transformPost hook. Below are parameters which transformPost accepts.

Param	Type	Description
content	String	Unprocessed post content in markdown

To avoid unexpected behavior, you should always return your transformed post text on this hook. If you don't need to add anything, simply exclude this hook from your configuration.

To get you an idea of what this hook is capable of, below example shows you how to add emoji feature on your post by using the hook.

// ambercat.config.js
const emoji = require('node-emoji');

module.exports = {
 // ...
 transformPost(content) {
   const replacer = (match) => emoji.emojify(match);
   return content.replace(/(:.*)/g, replacer);
 },
};

Localization

Your main blog language is set on ambercat.config.js.

// ambercat.config.js

module.exports = {
  language: 'en',
  direction: 'ltr',
  // ...
};

To make a translation from your main post, create index.<language-code>.md under the same directory. The language code should follow ISO 639-1 standard.

This is how the file structure looks like if there are multiple translations on a single post.

YYYY-MMM-DD-your-post-title/
  index.md
  index.es.md
  index.fr.md

Every new language should be registered to translations property on ambercat.config.js.

// ambercat.config.js

module.exports = {
  language: 'en',
  direction: 'ltr',
  // register only languages you are using
  translations: {
    es: {
      name: 'Español',
      direction: 'ltr',
    },
    vi: {
      name: 'Tiếng Việt',
      direction: 'ltr',
    },
    ar: {
      name: 'العربية',
      direction: 'rtl',
    },
    ko: {
      name: '한국어',
      direction: 'ltr',
    },
    ja: {
      name: '日本語',
      direction: 'ltr',
    },
    // ....
  },
};

Every translation will be generated into /<language-code>/your-post-title.html, and every language will have an archive page on /<language-code>/index.html.