A static website generator combines a markup language, such as Markdownor reStructuredText, with a templating engine such asJinja, to produce HTMLfiles. The HTML files can be hosted and served by aweb server orcontent delivery network (CDN)without any additional dependencies such as aWSGI server.
For this, it uses the markdown-it-py parser, which is a well-structured markdown parser for Python that is CommonMark-compliant and also extensible. MyST adds several new syntax options to CommonMark in order to be used with Sphinx, the documentation generation engine used extensively in the Python ecosystem. Python-Markdown is a package that converts content in Markdown format to HTML. In this example, we will look at how to convert Markdown to HTML and automatically generate a table-of-contents. We will also look at using the command-line tool to convert content. We will also cover how to use fenced code blocks. In this video, we show how to use Python to convert markdown to HTML and add Python syntax highlighting. The video was inspired by a blog post. Def markdownformatting(htmltext, url): h = html2text.HTML2Text # Options to transform URL into absolute links h.bodywidth = 0 h.protectlinks = True h.wraplinks = False h.baseurl = url mdtext = h.handle (htmltext) return mdtext.
Why are static site generators useful?
Static content files such as HTML, CSS and JavaScriptcan be served from a content delivery network (CDN) for high scale and lowcost. If a statically generated website is hit by high concurrent traffic itwill be easily served by the CDN without dropped connections.
For example, whenFull Stack Python was on the top of Hacker Newsfor a weekend, GitHub Pages was used as a CDNto serve the site and didn't have any issues even with close to 400concurrent connections at a time, as shown in the following Google Analyticsscreenshot captured during that traffic burst.
How do static website generators work?
Static site generators allow a user to create HTML files by writing in amarkup language and coding template files. The static site generator thencombines the markup language and templates to produce HTML. The output HTMLdoes not need to be maintained by hand because it is regenerated every timethe markup or templates are modified.
For example, as shown in the diagram below, the Pelican static sitegenerator can take in reStructuredText files and Jinja2 template filesas input then combine them to output a set of static HTML files.
What's the downside of using static site generators?
The major downside is that code cannot be executed after a site is created.You are stuck with the output files so if you're used to building webapplications with a traditional web framework you'llhave to change your expectations.
Content that is typically powered by a database, such as comments, sessionsand user data can only be handled through third party services. For example,if you want to have comments on a static website you'd need toembed Disqus's form and be completely reliant upontheir service.
Many web applications simply cannot be built with only a static sitegenerator. However, a static website generator can create part of a sitethat will be served up by a web server while other pages are handled by theWSGI server. If done right, those web applications have the potential toscale better than if every page is rendered by the WSGI server. Thecomplexity may or may not be worth it for your specific application.
Python implementations
Numerous static website generators exist in many different languages. Theones listed here are primarily coded in Python.
Pelicanis a commonly used Python static website generator which is used to createFull Stack Python. Theprimary templating engine is Jinja and Markdown, reStructuredText andAsciiDoc are supported with the default configuration.
Lektor is a static content management system and sitegenerator that can deploy its output to any webserver. It usesJinja2 as its template engine.
MkDocs uses a YAML configurationfile to take Markdown files and an optional theme to output a documentationsite. The templating engine is Jinja, but a user doesn't have to create herown templates unless a custom site is desired at which point it might makemore sense to use a different static site generator instead.
mynt(source code) is built to createblogs and uses Jinja to generate HTML pages.
Nikola(source code) takes inreStructuredText, Markdown or Jupyter (IPython) Notebooks and combinesthe files with Mako or Jinja2 templates to output static sites. It iscompatible with both Python 2.7 and 3.3+. Python 2.7 will be droppedin early 2016 while Python 3.3+ will continue to be supported.
Acrylamid(source code) uses incrementalbuilds to generate static sites faster than recreating every page aftereach change is made to the input files.
Hyde(source code) started out as a Pythonrewrite of the popular Ruby-basedJekyll static site generator. Today the projecthas moved past those 'clone Jekyll' origins. Hyde supports Jinja as wellas other templating languages and places more emphasis on metadata withinthe markup files to instruct the generator how to produce the output files.Check out theHyde-powered websitespage to see live examples created with Hyde.
Grow SDK (source code)uses projects, known as pods, which contain a specific file and directorystructure so the site can be generated. The project remains in the'experimental' phase.
Complexity(source code) is a site generatorfor users who like to work in HTML. It uses HTML for templating buthas some functionality from Jinja for inheritance. Works withPython 2.6+, 3.3+ and PyPy.
Cactus (source code) uses the Djangotemplating engine that was originally built with front-end designers inmind. It works with both Python 2.x and 3.x.
Python Html Table To Markdown
Open source Python static site generator examples
This site isall open source in its own GitHub repositoryunder the MIT license. Fork away!
Django REST Frameworkuses MkDocs to create its documentation site. Be sure to take a look at themkdocs.yml fileto see how large, well-written docs are structured for that project.
Practicing web development uses Acrylamid to createits site. The code isopen source on GitHub.
Linux Open Admin Days (Loadsys) has theirsite open source and available for viewing.
The Pythonic Perambulations blog has a fairlystandard theme but isalso open source on GitHub.
Static site generator resources
Static site generators can be implemented in any programming language. Thefollowing resources either are general to any programming ecosystem orprovide a unique angle on how to use a static site generator.
Static vs Dynamic Websitesdoes an excellent job of showing the differences between a dynamic websitethat uses a database backend to produce content in response to a requestcompared with static sites that are pregenerated. There is also asecond part in the serieswhere generic static site generator concepts are explained.
Staticgen lists static website generatorsof all programming languages sorted by various attributes such as thenumber of GitHub stars, forks and issues.
The title is a big grandiose, but there's some solid detail in this articleonwhy static website generators are the next big thing.I'd argue static website generators have been big for a long time now.
Static site generators can be used for a range of websites from sideprojects up to big sites. This blog post byWeWork on why they use a static site generatorexplains it from the perspective of a large business.
Ditching Wordpress and becoming one of the cool kidsis one developer's experience moving away from Wordpress and ontoPelican with reStructuredText for his personal blog.
Static websites with Flaskexplains how to use Flask-Frozento generate a static site based on content from the web framework and adata source backend. This approach is an alternative to using apurpose-built static website generator such as Pelican, Lektor or MkDocs.
Building A Serverless Contact Form For Your Static Siteshows how to use HTML andJavaScript deployed to AWS Lambdato collect input with a form on a static site.
5 ways to handle forms on your static sitegives a good overview of options like Google Forms for when you absolutelymust get input from users on a static site.
Static site deployment resources
Deploying a static site is far less complicated than atraditional web application deployment, but you stillneed to host the files somewhere accessible. You'll also to set up DNS topoint a domain name to your site as well as provide HTTPS support.These guides walk through various ways of handling the static sitedeployment.
Static site hosting with S3 and Cloudflareshows how to set up an S3 bucket with Cloudflare in front as a CDN thatserves the content with HTTPS. You should be able to accomplish roughlythe same situation with Amazon Cloudfront, but as a Cloudflare user Ilike their service for these static site configurations.
Google Cloud provides a tutorial on how to use them tohost your static site.Note that you cannot currently use HTTPS on Google Storage servers, which is amajor downside.
scar is an open source tool formaking static site deployments and redeployments to Amazon Web Serviceseasier.
Deploying a Static Blog with Continuous Integrationuses a Hugo (a Golang-based static site generator) generated siteas an example but the instructions can easily be used to deploya Python-based static site generator output as well.
How to Make an AWS S3 Static Website With SSLexplains the configuration required to use SSL for HTTPS on anAWS-hosted static site.
Hosting your static site with AWS S3, Route 53, and CloudFrontis another solid tutorial that uses the AWS stack to deploy aglobally-hosted site.
Why your static website needs HTTPSshows all of the malicious activity that bad actors can cause if youdo not use HTTPS as part of your static site deployment. There are fewexcuses for having an insecure site without required HTTPS in today'sworld of free Let's Encrypt certificates.
How to Build a Low-tech Website?takes static site deployments to the extreme. The site served withsolar power and customized hardware setup. This is a great read eventhough it will not be remotely practical for most organizations.
Python Markdown Example
What else do you want to learn about Python web dev?
I've built a Python web app, now how do I deploy it?
I want to learn how to code a Python web application using a framework.
What are web application programming interfaces (APIs)?
Note
The documentation for this module is an excerpt of the documentation available on the markdown2 project page on GitHub. Minor edits have been made to make the documentation fit on one page and to remove passages that are not relevant on iOS. Also, only a summary of available extras is included here, for more information on individual extras, please refer to the project page wiki.
Markdown is a light text markup format and a processor to convert that to HTML. The originator describes it as follows:
Python Html To Markdown Pdf
.png?1425528820 "Python")
Static site deployment resources
Deploying a static site is far less complicated than atraditional web application deployment, but you stillneed to host the files somewhere accessible. You'll also to set up DNS topoint a domain name to your site as well as provide HTTPS support.These guides walk through various ways of handling the static sitedeployment.
Static site hosting with S3 and Cloudflareshows how to set up an S3 bucket with Cloudflare in front as a CDN thatserves the content with HTTPS. You should be able to accomplish roughlythe same situation with Amazon Cloudfront, but as a Cloudflare user Ilike their service for these static site configurations.
Google Cloud provides a tutorial on how to use them tohost your static site.Note that you cannot currently use HTTPS on Google Storage servers, which is amajor downside.
scar is an open source tool formaking static site deployments and redeployments to Amazon Web Serviceseasier.
Deploying a Static Blog with Continuous Integrationuses a Hugo (a Golang-based static site generator) generated siteas an example but the instructions can easily be used to deploya Python-based static site generator output as well.
How to Make an AWS S3 Static Website With SSLexplains the configuration required to use SSL for HTTPS on anAWS-hosted static site.
Hosting your static site with AWS S3, Route 53, and CloudFrontis another solid tutorial that uses the AWS stack to deploy aglobally-hosted site.
Why your static website needs HTTPSshows all of the malicious activity that bad actors can cause if youdo not use HTTPS as part of your static site deployment. There are fewexcuses for having an insecure site without required HTTPS in today'sworld of free Let's Encrypt certificates.
How to Build a Low-tech Website?takes static site deployments to the extreme. The site served withsolar power and customized hardware setup. This is a great read eventhough it will not be remotely practical for most organizations.
Python Markdown Example
What else do you want to learn about Python web dev?
I've built a Python web app, now how do I deploy it?
I want to learn how to code a Python web application using a framework.
What are web application programming interfaces (APIs)?
Note
The documentation for this module is an excerpt of the documentation available on the markdown2 project page on GitHub. Minor edits have been made to make the documentation fit on one page and to remove passages that are not relevant on iOS. Also, only a summary of available extras is included here, for more information on individual extras, please refer to the project page wiki.
Markdown is a light text markup format and a processor to convert that to HTML. The originator describes it as follows:
Python Html To Markdown Pdf
'Markdown is a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML).'
– http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/
This (markdown2) is a fast and complete Python implementation of Markdown. It was written to closely match the behaviour of the original Perl-implemented Markdown.pl. markdown2 also comes with a number of extensions (called 'extras') for things like syntax coloring, tables, header-ids. See the 'Extras' section below.
Quick usage:
Extras¶
Python Html To Markdown Program
By default markdown2‘s processing attempts to produce output exactly as defined by http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax – the 'Markdown core.' However, a few optional extras are also provided.
Implemented Extras¶
- code-friendly: Disable _ and __ for em and strong.
- code-color: (DEPRECATED Use fenced-code-blocks extra instead.) Pygments-based syntax coloring of
sections. cuddled-lists: Allow lists to be cuddled to the preceding paragraph.fenced-code-blocks: Allows a code block to not have to be indented by fencing it with ‘```‘ on a line before and after. Based on http://github.github.com/github-flavored-markdown/ with support for syntax highlighting.footnotes: support footnotes as in use on daringfireball.net and implemented in other Markdown processors (tho not in Markdown.pl v1.0.1).header-ids: Adds 'id' attributes to headers. The id value is a slug of the header text.html-classes: Takes a dict mapping html tag names (lowercase) to a string to use for a 'class' tag attribute. Currently only supports 'pre' and 'code' tags. Add an issue if you require this for other tags.link-patterns: Auto-link given regex patterns in text (e.g. bug number references, revision number references).markdown-in-html: Allow the use of markdown='1' in a block HTML tag to have markdown processing be done on its contents. Similar to http://michelf.com/projects/php-markdown/extra/#markdown-attr but with some limitations.metadata: Extract metadata from a leading ‘—'-fenced block.nofollow: Add rel='nofollow' to add tags with an href. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nofollow.pyshell: Treats unindented Python interactive shell sessions asblocks.smarty-pants: Fancy quote, em-dash and ellipsis handling similar to http://daringfireball.net/projects/smartypants/. See old issue 42 for discussion.toc: The returned HTML string gets a new 'toc_html' attribute which is a Table of Contents for the document. (experimental)wiki-tables: Google Code Wiki table syntax support.xml: Passes one-liner processing instructions and namespaced XML tags.
How to turn on extras¶
How to turn on extras¶Extras are all off by default and turned on as follows:
Functions¶
Functions¶markdown2.markdown(text, html4tags=False, tab_width=DEFAULT_TAB_WIDTH, safe_mode=None, extras=None, link_patterns=None, use_file_vars=False)¶Convert the markdown-formatted text to html with the given options.
markdown2.markdown_path(path, encoding='utf-8', html4tags=False, tab_width=DEFAULT_TAB_WIDTH, safe_mode=None, extras=None, link_patterns=None, use_file_vars=False)¶Same as markdown(), but use the text in a given file as input.
