Site Generation/Build Tools

Reasoning

Why would we want a site generation/build tool versus statically maintaining a site? Branding and time. Imagine we had to edit X number of files to replace a footer or header versus editing a single file. What if we had to edit X pages just to replace the site logo? This would be horribly time consuming, and as we grow here at Apache, will become great overhead impacting accuracy and possibly releases.

Other Apache projects use build tools. The Groovy project built their own some time ago. There are static site tool projects which use other Apache projects such as Groovy and FreeMarker with JBake being such an example, and hopefully one of these will work for our needs, to promote the Apache tools, and can be the first attempt at a successful static site generation project for NetBeans.

There are also other tools which use Ruby, Python, or Node JS. Various tools have been reviewed, and do quite similar things. If a Java tool such as JBake which uses or allows the use of different Apache projects can not be used, then perhaps one of those can be used, and in that case we should consider a Node JS build tool as the browser front end market and developers have been using Node JS stacks more frequently, and perhaps would be closer to the problem in this case.

Possible and Reviewed Tools

As mentioned in the reasoning, there were various reviewed tools built on different stacks such as Java, Ruby, Node JS, and Python. In the process of this work, rolling our own generator was not considered, but could certainly be considered and reviewed. All reviewed tools market themselves as Static Site Generators, and was the main criterion used to determine if a project should be reviewed, along with having an Apache approved OSS license.  These include:

JBake (Java based)

Jekyll (Ruby based)

Metalsmith (Node JS)

Wintersmith (Node JS)

Envisioned Generated Site Layout

Before we configure what ever tool is chosen, we should hash out what the layout will be for the generated site. Some of this layout may be derived from conventions of what ever tool we select should we agree this is reasonable, but should be driven by Apache processes of threads and votes on the Apache NetBeans (Incubating) dev mailing list.

TBD

New Site Plan

TBD