May 07, 2023

LunaGen Intro: Part 3 - Use

Third of three parts of an introduction to my "LunaGen" software.

I may add slides to this later, but currently it's just me talking.

This video is also used in my unit-testing.

Transcript:

PT 3: USE

Now, let's take a look at the code.

First of all,

there are FOUR separate elements

that combine to make a page:

The skeleton

The site data

The site templates

The theme.

Each of these is a tree of folders and files,

which you will need to create for your site.

Then you will run LunaGen on them,

to build a static HTML site to deploy.

Currently, this is all there is,

but the design will eventually allow

for a cron job to run on the server

to update changing parts of the site,

without having to fully regenerate it.

As a site developer using LunaGen,

you create each of these four elements.

The structural division is intended

to relect the different schedules for updates,

as well as technical structure.

The skeleton is the base of your page.

It's a directory that will be copied first

into your site build.

It may contain sub-folders and files.

It's also the primary way to provide images

and sound or video clips

that will be served directly from your site.

If your site doesn't require much of the latter,

then you likely will be able to create the

skeleton once, and not have to change it,

unless you make a major redesign of your site.

The "theme" allows you to choose

an external source

for a lot of style decisions.

You might decide, for example,

that you want several LunaGen sites

to share a similar theme.

Or, you might want to use an existing theme,

rather than having to do all the design work

directly on your site.

The theme can also override design decisions

that are included

in the LunaGen source code.

These usually provide top-level functionality

such as the way secondary and primary streams

are combined.

Which a theme designer can alter.

A theme consists mainly of a collection

of Jinja2 templates

and CSS (cascading style sheets).

It may also include its own 'skeleton' folder,

with additional images or other resources

that the theme needs.

In turn, your site's "templates" folder

can override the theme's templates.

This allows for theme customizations just

for your site.

It's also the practical way to add complex,

rich-text formatted content to a LunaGen site,

as a template can contain any HTML formatting

that you want.

It, too, may contain its own skeleton,

which will get copied over the theme skeleton,

which was copied over the original site skeleton.

It's up to you whether you want to put something

in 'templates/skeleton' or just in 'skeleton'.

I would suggest that images that are solely part

of the theme design should be in 'templates/skeleton'

while icons, illustrations, or other things which

are part of the meaning of your site should be in

the main 'skeleton'.

Again, once you've chosen a theme

and created a templates directory,

you probably don't need to revisit those things

unless you plan to make major site design changes.

And so that brings us to the day-to-day

management part of the site,

which is the 'site data' folder.

This is a file tree,

consisting mainly of YAML data files.

It can also have text files,

and in the future,

it may be possible to include

Markdown or reStructuredText files,

or indeed, anything Pandoc can handle.

None of that is implemented, though,

as my current application only calls

for simple caption text,

which can be included in the YAML.

More significantly,

the folder structure can matter.

For example, the "series of episodes"

functionality in LunaGen assumes that

each series has a folder,

with subfolders for each episode.

The YAML files in this tree also

act as control files.

This is where you specify your chosen theme,

for example,

as well as some theme customizations,

like the overall site name,

contact information,

and so on.

Specific data needed for LunaGen extensions

can be provided in the YAML as well. As well

as the necessary extra data for "series of episodes"

structure (which is basically a built-in extension).

The idea is that you set up your site with a

skeleton, a chosen theme, any overriding

templates you need, and then you author the

data files.

Whenever you add content,

you will update the YAML data file tree,

possibly adding folders or files, as needed.

Since all the style information is in the skeleton

or templates, the data files you have to update

regularly can be very compact.

Heavy design work isn't necessary,

and consistency can largely be enforced

by the templates,

so you don't have to spend time on that.

Alternatively,

you can change the look of the whole site

by changing theme and templates.

I hope this introduction is useful. I may follow

it up with some analysis of the code structure

for developers.

Thank you for watching!

...more

View all episodes

May 07, 2023

LunaGen Intro: Part 3 - Use

Third of three parts of an introduction to my "LunaGen" software.

I may add slides to this later, but currently it's just me talking.

This video is also used in my unit-testing.

Transcript:

PT 3: USE

Now, let's take a look at the code.

First of all,

there are FOUR separate elements

that combine to make a page:

The skeleton

The site data

The site templates

The theme.

Each of these is a tree of folders and files,

which you will need to create for your site.

Then you will run LunaGen on them,

to build a static HTML site to deploy.

Currently, this is all there is,

but the design will eventually allow

for a cron job to run on the server

to update changing parts of the site,

without having to fully regenerate it.

As a site developer using LunaGen,

you create each of these four elements.

The structural division is intended

to relect the different schedules for updates,

as well as technical structure.

The skeleton is the base of your page.

It's a directory that will be copied first

into your site build.

It may contain sub-folders and files.

It's also the primary way to provide images

and sound or video clips

that will be served directly from your site.

If your site doesn't require much of the latter,

then you likely will be able to create the

skeleton once, and not have to change it,

unless you make a major redesign of your site.

The "theme" allows you to choose

an external source

for a lot of style decisions.

You might decide, for example,

that you want several LunaGen sites

to share a similar theme.

Or, you might want to use an existing theme,

rather than having to do all the design work

directly on your site.

The theme can also override design decisions

that are included

in the LunaGen source code.

These usually provide top-level functionality

such as the way secondary and primary streams

are combined.

Which a theme designer can alter.

A theme consists mainly of a collection

of Jinja2 templates

and CSS (cascading style sheets).

It may also include its own 'skeleton' folder,

with additional images or other resources

that the theme needs.

In turn, your site's "templates" folder

can override the theme's templates.

This allows for theme customizations just

for your site.

It's also the practical way to add complex,

rich-text formatted content to a LunaGen site,

as a template can contain any HTML formatting

that you want.

It, too, may contain its own skeleton,

which will get copied over the theme skeleton,

which was copied over the original site skeleton.

It's up to you whether you want to put something

in 'templates/skeleton' or just in 'skeleton'.

I would suggest that images that are solely part

of the theme design should be in 'templates/skeleton'

while icons, illustrations, or other things which

are part of the meaning of your site should be in

the main 'skeleton'.

Again, once you've chosen a theme

and created a templates directory,

you probably don't need to revisit those things

unless you plan to make major site design changes.

And so that brings us to the day-to-day

management part of the site,

which is the 'site data' folder.

This is a file tree,

consisting mainly of YAML data files.

It can also have text files,

and in the future,

it may be possible to include

Markdown or reStructuredText files,

or indeed, anything Pandoc can handle.

None of that is implemented, though,

as my current application only calls

for simple caption text,

which can be included in the YAML.

More significantly,

the folder structure can matter.

For example, the "series of episodes"

functionality in LunaGen assumes that

each series has a folder,

with subfolders for each episode.

The YAML files in this tree also

act as control files.

This is where you specify your chosen theme,

for example,

as well as some theme customizations,

like the overall site name,

contact information,

and so on.

Specific data needed for LunaGen extensions

can be provided in the YAML as well. As well

as the necessary extra data for "series of episodes"

structure (which is basically a built-in extension).

The idea is that you set up your site with a

skeleton, a chosen theme, any overriding

templates you need, and then you author the

data files.

Whenever you add content,

you will update the YAML data file tree,

possibly adding folders or files, as needed.

Since all the style information is in the skeleton

or templates, the data files you have to update

regularly can be very compact.

Heavy design work isn't necessary,

and consistency can largely be enforced

by the templates,

so you don't have to spend time on that.

Alternatively,

you can change the look of the whole site

by changing theme and templates.

I hope this introduction is useful. I may follow

it up with some analysis of the code structure

for developers.

Thank you for watching!

...more

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LunaGen Intro: Part 3 - Use

LunaGen Intro: Part 3 - Use