PhlyBlog: Static Blog Generator

This module is a tool for generating a static blog.

Blog posts are simply PHP files that create and return PhlyBlog\EntryEntity objects. You point the compiler at a directory, and it creates a tree of files representing your blog and its feeds. These can either be consumed by your application, or they can be plain old HTML markup files that you serve directly.

Requirements

• PHP >= 7.3
• Laminas packages, notably:
  • laminas/laminas-view, used to render and write generated files.
  • laminas/laminas-mvc and laminas/laminas-modulemanager, as this implements a module, and the compiler script depends on it and a laminas-mvc Application instance. As such, it also has a dependency on laminas/laminas-servicemanager and laminas/laminas-eventmanager.
  • laminas/laminas-feed for generating feeds.
  • laminas/laminas-tag for generating tag clouds.
• phly/phly-common for Entity and Filter interfaces.

Installation

Use Composer to add this module to your application:

$ composer require phly/phly-blog

Writing Entries

Find a location in your repository for entries, preferably outside your document root; I recommend either data/blog/ or posts/.

Post files are simply PHP files that return a PhlyBlog\EntryEntity instance. A sample is provided in misc/sample-post.php. This post can be copied as a template.

Important things to note:

• Set the created and/or updated timestamps. Alternately, use DateTime or date() to generate a timestamp based on a date/time string.
• Entries marked as "drafts" (i.e., setDraft(true)) will not be published.
• Entries marked as private (i.e., setPublic(false)) will be published, but will not be aggregated in paginated views or feeds. As such, you need to hand the URL to somebody in order for them to see it.
• You can set an array of tags. Tags can have whitespace, which will be translated to "+" characters.

Usage

This module provides laminas/laminas-cli tooling.

Run:

$ ./vendor/bin/laminas help phly-blog:compile

to get usage. Currently, the compilation tooling can generate the following artifacts:

• A file per entry
• Paginated entry files
• Paginated entry files by year
• Paginated entry files by month
• Paginated entry files by day
• Paginated entry files by tag
• Atom and/or RSS feeds for recent entries
• Atom and/or RSS feeds for recent entries by tag
• Optionally, a tag cloud

You will want to setup local configuration; I recommend putting it in config/autoload/blog.global.php. As a sample:

<?php
return [
    'blog' => [
        'options' => [
            // The following indicate where to write files. Note that this
            // configuration writes to the "public/" directory, which would
            // create a blog made from static files. For the various
            // paginated views, "%d" is the current page number; "%s" is
            // typically a date string (see below for more information) or tag.
            'by_day_filename_template'   => 'public/blog/day/%s-p%d.html',
            'by_month_filename_template' => 'public/blog/month/%s-p%d.html',
            'by_tag_filename_template'   => 'public/blog/tag/%s-p%d.html',
            'by_year_filename_template'  => 'public/blog/year/%s-p%d.html',
            'entries_filename_template'  => 'public/blog-p%d.html',

            // In this case, the "%s" is the entry ID.
            'entry_filename_template'    => 'public/blog/%s.html',

            // For feeds, the final "%s" is the feed type -- "atom" or "rss". In
            // the case of the tag feed, the initial "%s" is the current tag.
            'feed_filename'              => 'public/blog-%s.xml',
            'tag_feed_filename_template' => 'public/blog/tag/%s-%s.xml',

            // This is the link to a blog post
            'entry_link_template'        => '/blog/%s.html',

            // These are the various URL templates for "paginated" views. The
            // "%d" in each is the current page number.
            'entries_url_template'       => '/blog-p%d.html',
            // For the year/month/day paginated views, "%s" is a string
            // representing the date. By default, this will be "YYYY",
            // "YYYY/MM", and "YYYY/MM/DD", respectively.
            'by_year_url_template'       => '/blog/year/%s-p%d.html',
            'by_month_url_template'      => '/blog/month/%s-p%d.html',
            'by_day_url_template'        => '/blog/day/%s-p%d.html',

            // These are the primary templates you will use -- the first is for
            // paginated lists of entries, the second for individual entries.
            // There are of course more templates, but these are the only ones
            // that will be directly referenced and rendered by the compiler.
            'entries_template'           => 'phly-blog/list',
            'entry_template'             => 'phly-blog/entry',

            // The feed author information is default information to use when
            // the author of a post is unknown, or is not an AuthorEntity
            // object (and hence does not contain this information).
            'feed_author_email'          => 'you@your.tld',
            'feed_author_name'           => "Your Name Here",
            'feed_author_uri'            => 'http://your.tld',
            'feed_hostname'              => 'http://your.tld',
            'feed_title'                 => 'Blog Entries :: Your Blog Name',
            'tag_feed_title_template'    => 'Tag: %s :: Your Blog Name',

            // If generating a tag cloud, you can specify options for
            // Laminas\Tag\Cloud. The following sets up percentage sizing from
            // 80-300%
            'tag_cloud_options'          => ['tagDecorator' => [
                'decorator' => 'html_tag',
                'options'   => [
                    'fontSizeUnit' => '%',
                    'minFontSize'  => 80,
                    'maxFontSize'  => 300,
                ],
            ]],
        ],

        // This is the location where you are keeping your post files (the PHP
        // files returning `PhlyBlog\EntryEntity` objects).
        'posts_path'     => 'data/posts/',

        // Tag cloud generation is possible, but you likely need to capture
        // the rendered cloud to inject elsewhere. You can do this with a
        // callback.
        // The callback will receive a Laminas\Tag\Cloud instance, the View
        // instance, application configuration // (as an array), and the
        // application's Locator instance.
        'cloud_callback' => ['Application\Module', 'handleTagCloud'],
    ],

    'view_manager' => [
        // You will likely want to customize the templates provided. Do so by
        // creating your own in your own module, and make sure you alter the
        // resolvers so that they point to the override locations. Below, I'm
        // putting my overrides in my Application module.
        'template_map' => [
            'phly-blog/entry-short'  => 'module/Application/view/phly-blog/entry-short.phtml',
            'phly-blog/entry'        => 'module/Application/view/phly-blog/entry.phtml',
            'phly-blog/list'         => 'module/Application/view/phly-blog/list.phtml',
            'phly-blog/paginator'    => 'module/Application/view/phly-blog/paginator.phtml',
            'phly-blog/tags'         => 'module/Application/view/phly-blog/tags.phtml',
        ],

        'template_path_stack' => [
            'phly-blog' => 'module/Application/view',
        ],
    ],
];

When you run the command line tool, it will generate files in the locations you specify in your configuration.