MiddlemanApp

Ruby static-site generator w/ sanity.

by Janson / @_janson_

There Are Many Like It, But This One Is Mine

There are a ridiculous number of static site generators.

Possibilities

or: just what I tried.

nanoc

nanoc.stoneship.org

  • mature, and well maintained
  • too big, too powerful, too flexible

jekyll

http://jekyllrb.com/

  • tied to gh-pages
  • non-standard folder structure
  • lotsa YAML front-matter
  • stagnant (until recently)

frank

https://github.com/blahed/frank

  • sinatra small & lightweight
  • cool built-in helpers
  • stagnant

serve

http://get-serve.com/

  • the View portion of Rails' MVC
  • designed for "design-first" rails prototyping
  • stagnant
  • may as well use Rails

middleman

Middleman is a command-line tool for creating static websites using all the shortcuts and tools of the modern web development environment.

http://middlemanapp.com/

  • sinatra based
  • hugely active development

middleman pros

how I work are the built-in defaults (or really easy to add)

  • haml
  • sass
  • bundler
  • semi-sane folder structure (less so recently)

middleman pros

rails-esque helpers

  • padrino based padrinorb.com
  • with some niceties
  • filters like :markdown & :javascript

middleman pros

optional extensions usually just work

  • compass
  • susy
  • middleman-livereload
  • middleman-deploy

middleman cons

  • not a 5min drop into larger projects
  • rvm or rbenv
  • not the best docs
  • not the best for larger sites

show & tell