Assemble-contrib-permalinks NPM

assemble-contrib-permalinks

Permalinks plugin for Assemble, the static site generator for Grunt.js, Yeoman and Node.js. This plugin enables powerful and configurable URI patterns, Moment.js for parsing dates, much more.

Heads up! permalinks v0.4.0 and greater require Assemble v0.5.0!

Also see the Gruntfile for example usage.

Quickstart

From the same directory as your project's Gruntfile and package.json, install this plugin with the following command:

npm install assemble-contrib-permalinks --save-dev

Once that's done, just add permalinks, the name of this module, to the plugins option in the Assemble task:

module.exports = function(grunt) {

  // Project configuration.
  grunt.initConfig({
    assemble: {
      options: {
        plugins: ['assemble-contrib-permalinks', 'other/plugins/*'],
        permalinks: {
          structure: ':year/:month/:day/:foo/index.html'
        }
      },
      files: {'blog/archives/': ['archives/*.hbs']}
    }
  });
  grunt.loadNpmTasks('assemble');
  grunt.registerTask('default', ['assemble']);
};

If everything was installed and configured correctly, you should be ready to go!

The "permalinks" plugin

Patterns

Permalink structure

Replacement patterns for dynamically constructing permalinks, as well as the corresponding directory structures.

Permalinks are appended to the dest directory. So given this config:

assemble: {
  blog: {
    options: {
      permalinks: {
        structure: ':year/:month/:day/:basename:ext'
      }
    },
    files: {
      'blog/archives/': ['archives/*.hbs']
    }
  }
}
// the generated directory structure and resulting path would look something like:
//=> 'blog/archives/2011/01/01/an-inspiring-post.html'

How replacement patterns work

This plugin comes with a number of built-in replacement patterns that will automatically parse and convert the built-in variables into the appropriate string. Since Assemble provides a number of generic variables for accessing page data, such as basename, ext, filename etc., this plugin simply dynamically builds the replacement patterns from those generic variables.

Barring a few exceptions (_page, data, filePair, page, pageName), you should be able to use any valid variable that is on the page context in your replacement patterns.

For example, assuming we have a file, ./templates/overview.hbs:

:ext: would result in the dest extension: .html
:extname: alias for :ext.
:basename: would result in overview
:filename: would result in the dest file name, overview.html
:pagename: alias for :filename.
:category: Slugified version of the very first category for a page.

Special patterns

A few special replacement patterns were created for this lib.

`:num`

Automatically adds sequential, "padded" numbers based on the length of the pages array in the current target.

For example, given the structure :num-:basename:

1-9 pages would result in 1-foo.html, 2-bar.html, 3-baz.html and so on.
1,000 pages would result in 0001-foo.html, 0002-bar.html, 0003-baz.html, ... 1000-quux.html.

`:000`

Adds sequential digits. Similar to :num, but the number of digits is determined by the number of zeros defined.

Example:

:00 will result in two-digit numbers
:000 will result in three-digit numbers
:00000000 will result in eight-digit numbers, and so on...

`:random(Pattern, Number)`

Adds randomized characters based on the pattern provided in the parentheses. The first parameter defines the pattern you wish to use, and an optional second parameter defines the number of characters to generate.

For example, :random(A, 4) (whitespace insenstive) would result in randomized 4-digit uppercase letters, like, ZAKH, UJSL... and so on.

no second parameter

If a second parameter is not provided, then the length() of the characters used in the first parameter will be used to determine the number of digits to output. For example:

:random(AAAA) is equivelant to :random(A, 4)
:random(AAA0) and :random(AA00) and :random(A0A0) are equivelant to :random(A0, 4)

valid characters (and examples)

:random(aa): results in double-digit, randomized, lower-case letters (abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz)
:random(AAA): results in triple-digit, randomized, upper-case letters (ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ)
:random(0, 6): results in six-digit, randomized nubmers (0123456789)
:random(!, 5): results in single-digit randomized, valid non-letter characters (~!@#$%^&()_+-={}[];\',.)
:random(A!a0, 9): results in nine-digit, randomized characters (any of the above)

The order in which the characters are provided has no impact on the outcome.

Custom replacement patterns

If you have some patterns you'd like to implement, if you think they're common enough that they should be built into this plugin, please submit a pull request.

Adding patterns is easy, just add a patterns: [] property to the permalinks option, then add any number of patterns to the array. For example, let's say we want to add the :project variable to our permalinks:

options: {
  permalinks: {
    structure: ':year/:month/:day/:project/:slug:ext',
    patterns: []
  }
}
...

Since :project is not a built-in variable, we need to add a replacement pattern so that any permalinks that include this variable will actually work:

options: {
  permalinks: {
    structure: ':year/:month/:day/:project/:slug:ext',
    patterns: [
      {
        pattern: ':project',
        replacement: '<%= pkg.name %>'
      }
    ]
  }
}
...

with custom properties

Any string pattern is acceptable, as long as a : precedes the variable, but don't forget that there must also be a matching property in the context or Assemble will might an error (or worse, not). In other words, when you add a replacement pattern for :foo, it's good practice to make sure this property exists:

---
foo: bar
slug:
---

Date patterns

This plugin uses the incredibly feature rich and flexible moment.js for parsing dates. Please consult the moment.js documentation for usage information and for the full list of available options.

For the date variables to work, a date property must exist on the page object.

---
date: 2014-01-29 3:45 PM
---

pages: [
  {
    data: {
      title: 'All about permalinks, the novel.',
      description: 'This rivoting sequel to War & Peace will have you sleeping in no time.'
      date: '2014-01-29 3:45 PM'
    },
    content: ""
  }
]

Common date patterns

:year: The year of the date, four digits, for example 2014
:month: Month of the year, for example 01
:day: Day of the month, for example 13
:hour: Hour of the day, for example 24
:minute: Minute of the hour, for example 01
:second: Second of the minute, for example 59

For the following examples, let's assume we have a date in the YAML front matter of a page formatted like this:

---
date: 2014-01-29 3:45 PM
---

(note that this property doesn't have to be in YAML front matter, it just needs to be in the page.data object, so this works fine with options.pages collections as well.)

Full date

:date: Eqivelant to the full date: YYYY-MM-DD. Example: 2014-01-29

Year

:YYYY: The full year of the date. Example: 2014
:YY: The two-digit year of the date. Example: 14
:year: alias for YYYY

Month name

:MMMM: The full name of the month. Example January.
:MMM: The name of the month. Example: Jan
:monthname: alias for MMMM

Month number

:MM: The double-digit number of the month. Example: 01
:M: The single-digit number of the month. Example: 1
:month: alias for MM
:mo: alias for M

Day of the month

:day: alias for DD
:DD: The double-digit day of the month. Example: 29
:D: The double-digit day of the month. Example: 29

Day of the week

:dddd: Day of the week. Example: monday
:ddd: Day of the week. Example: mon
:dd: Day of the week. Example: Mo
:d: Day of the week. Example: 2

Hour

:HH: The double-digit time of day on a 24 hour clock. Example 15
:H: The single-digit time of day on a 24 hour clock. Example 3
:hh: The double-digit time of day on a 12 hour clock. Example 03
:h: The single-digit time of day on a 12 hour clock. Example 3
:hour: alias for HH

Minute

:mm: Minutes. Example: 45.
:m: Minutes. Example: 45.
:min: Alias for mm|m.
:minute: Alias for mm|m.

Second

:ss: Seconds. Example: 09.
:s: Seconds. Example: 9.
:sec: Alias for ss|s.
:second: Alias for ss|s.

Options

Note that this plugin does not currently modify actual links inside pages, so that will need to be addressed separately. I'm also willing to look at options for incorporating that into this plugin.

structure

Type: String Default: undefined

The permalink pattern to use for building paths and generated files. Permalink structures are appended to the dest defined for the current target.

For example, let's say we use the following pattern on a few blog posts: foo.hbs, bar.hbs, and baz.hbs:

options: {
  permalinks: {
    structure: ':year/:month/:day/:basename:ext',
  },
  files: {
    './blog/': ['./templates/blog/*.hbs']
  }
}
// results in
// => './blog/2014/01/01/foo.html'
// => './blog/2014/01/01/bar.html'
// => './blog/2014/01/01/baz.html'

'index' pages

Note that permalink structures will be ignored for files with the basename index. See Issue #20 for more info.

preset

Type: String Default: undefined

The following presets are currently available:

pretty: expands to :basename/index:html.
dayname: expands to :YYYY/:MM/:DD/:basename/index:ext.
monthname: expands to :YYYY/:MM/:basename/index:ext.

how presets work

In a nutshell, a preset is simply a pre-defined permalink structure, so instead of having to type out :foo/:bar/:baz/basename:html, you can just use pretty. Presets expand into permalink structures following this pattern:

dest + preset
//=> dest + :bar/index:html

Additionally, if a structure is also defined, the preset will be appended to it.

dest + structure + preset
//=> dest + :foo + :bar/index:html

If you would like to see another preset, please submit an issue.

dateFormats

Type: Array Default: ["YYYY-MM-DD"]

Array of custom date formats for Moment.js to use for parsing dates.

options: {
  permalinks: {
    dateFormats: ["YYYY-MM-DD", "MM-DD-YYYY", "YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss.SSS"]
  },
  files: {
    ...
  }
}

lang

Type: String Default: en

Set the "global" language for Moment.js to use for converting dates:

options: {
  permalinks: {
    structure: ':year/:month/:day/:basename:ext',
    lang: 'fr'
  }
  files: {
    'blog/': ['templates/blog/*.hbs']
  }
}
...
//=> blog/2013/mars/13/my-post.html

exclusions

Type: Array Default: ['_page', 'data', 'filePair', 'page', 'pageName']

Properties to omit from the context for processing replacement patterns. I wanted to use this for omitting the default properties, but I decided to expose this as an option in case it comes in useful to someone else.

options: {
  permalinks: {
    exclusions: ["foo", "bar"],
  },
  files: {
    ...
  }
}

Usage Examples

Pretty URLs

Pretty links involve saving an index.html to each directory, with the tile, file name, slug, or some other variable as the :basename of the directory. For example:

assemble: {
  blog: {
    options: {
      permalinks: {
        structure: ':basename/:index.html'
      }
    },
    files: [
      {expand: true, cwd: 'templates/', src: ['*.hbs'], dest: 'blog/', ext: '.html'}
    ]
  }
}

which results in something like:

dest + /my-node-js-post/index.html
dest + /my-javascript-post/index.html
dest + /my-assemble-post/index.html

Also see the Gruntfile for example usage.

Using presets

Presets allow you to achieve certain permalinks structures without having to explicitly define each URL segment. For example, in the previous example we created pretty URLs., Here is how we would do the same with presets:

options: {
  permalinks: {
    preset: 'pretty'
  },
  files: {
    './blog/': ['./templates/blog/*.hbs']
  }
}

The above example won't necessarily save a whole lot of time, but it's a nice way of ensuring that you're getting pretty links with whatever permalinks structure you define. To some, this might be particularly useful when "stacked" with more complex permalink structures, e.g.:

options: {
  permalinks: {
    preset: 'pretty',
    structure: ':archives/:categories',
  },
  files: {
    './blog/': ['./templates/blog/*.hbs']
  }
}

which expands to: ./blog/:archives/:categories/:basename:/index:ext, and would result in:

./blog/archives/categories/foo/index.html

Also see the Gruntfile for example usage.

Dest extension

In most cases your generated HTML will have the .html extension, then using :index.html is probably fine. But if you happen to switch back and forthing between projects that alternate between .htm and .html, you can use :index:ext instead.

Also see the Gruntfile for example usage.

Path separators

You don't have to use slashes (/) only in your permalinks, you can use - or _ wherever you need them as well. For example, this is perfectly valid:

:YYYY_:MM-:DD/:slug:category:foo/:bar/index.html

Warning, this should be obvious, but make sure not to use a . in the middle of your paths, especially if you use Windows.

Also see the Gruntfile for example usage.

Dynamically build slugs

You can even dynamically build up strings using Lo-Dash templates:

---
date: 1-1-2014

# Dynamically build the slug for example
area: business
section: finance
slug: <%= area %>-<%= section %>
---

With this config:

blog: {
  options: {
    permalinks: {
      structure: ':year/:month/:day/:slug/:title.html'
    }
  },
  files: {
    'blog/': ['posts/*.hbs']
  }
}

Would render to:

blog/2014/01/01/business-finance/index.html

Also see the Gruntfile for example usage.

More examples

Keep in mind that the date is formatted the way you want it, you don't need to follow these examples. Also, some of these variables will only work if you add that property to your pages, and setup the replacement patterns.

:YYYY/:MM/:DD/news/:id/index:ext
//=> dest + '/2014/01/01/news/001/index.html'

:YYYY/:MM/:DD/:mm/:ss/news/:id/index:ext
//=> dest + '/2014/01/01/40/16/news/001/index.html'

:year/:month/:day/:basename:ext
//=> dest + '/2014/01/01/my-post.html'

blog/:year-:month-:day/:basename:ext
//=> dest + 'blog/2014-01-01/my-post.html'

:date/:basename:ext
//=> dest + '2014-01-01/my-post.html'

:year/:month/:day/:category/index.html
//=> dest + '/2014/01/01/javascript/index.html'

:year/:month/:day/:slug/index.html
//=> dest + '/2014/01/01/business-finance/index.html'

Also see the Gruntfile for example usage.

SEO

Recommendations

Permalinks are important for SEO. but you should spend some time thinking about the strategy you want to use before you decide on a URL structure.

Avoid date-based permalinks

Yep, that's what I said. There are plenty of valid use cases for using date-based URL's. This plugin offers a number of date-based patterns, and we leverage Moment.js a lot. Still, I recommend that you avoid using a date-based permalink structure for your blog or documentation, because there is a good chance it will do more harm than good over the long term.

Date-based URL's tend to decrease click through rates on older articles. Think about it, who prefers reading out of date content? So use a URL strategy that doesn't go out of its way to emphasize the date, and you'l keep your posts feeling like fresh content.

Numeric permalinks

Numeric or :id based permalinks are better than date-based, but they don't really offer much usability or SEO benefit.

Idiomatic permalinks

The best structure is one that:

provides the highest degree of semantic relevance to the content, and
is useful to both search engines and humans

Here are some example permalink structures, pick the one you like or feel free to use something else:

:author
:category/:author

Since the :author variable isn't actually built in, you'll need to add it as a custom replacement pattern. But you could use :filename, :pagename, :basename and so on. The important thing to remember is that the name counts.

If you need to use a custom variable, such as :author or :title, just add it like this:

var _str = require('underscore.string');

assemble: {
  options: {
    permalinks: {
      structure: ':author:ext',
      patterns: [
        {
          pattern: ':author',
          replacement: '<%= _str.slugify(pkg.author.name) %>'
        }
      ]
    }
  },
  files: {},
...

Contributing

Find a bug? Have a feature request? Please create an Issue.

In lieu of a formal styleguide, take care to maintain the existing coding style. Add unit tests for any new or changed functionality, and run docs in the command line to build the docs with Verb.

Pull requests are also encouraged, and if you find this project useful please consider "starring" it to show your support! Thanks!

Other Assemble plugins

Here are some related projects you might be interested in from the Assemble core team.

assemble-plugin-blog: Assemble plugin for generating blog pages for posts and archive list pages.
assemble-plugin-drafts: Assemble plugin (v0.5.0) for preventing drafts from being rendered.
assemble-plugin-pagination: WIP this plugin isn't ready for use!
assemble-plugin-rss: NOT Published yet! This plugin isn't ready for prime time! Plugin for creating RSS feeds with Assemble, the static site generator for Node.js, Grunt.js and Yeoman.
generator-plugin: Yeoman generator for Assemble plugins.
grunt-init-assemble-plugin: Generate a plugin for Assemble.
plugins: Collection of contrib plugins maintained by the Assemble core team.
assemble-contrib-lunr-examples: Usages examples for assemble-contrib-lunr, a search plugin for Assemble.
assemble-contrib-markdown: HEADS UP! This isn't ready for prime time! Convert markdown files to HTML using marked.js. This plugin is an alternative to Assemble's markdown Handlebars helpers. Both are useful in different scenarios.
assemble-contrib-navigation: Assemble plugin for automatically generating Bootstrap-style side navigation.
assemble-contrib-permalinks: Permalinks plugin for Assemble, the static site generator for Grunt.js and Yeoman. This plugin enables powerful and configurable URI replacement patterns, presets, uses Moment.js for parsing dates, and much more.
assemble-contrib-sitemap: Sitemap generator plugin for Assemble
assemble-contrib-toc: Create a table of contents in the generated HTML, using Cheerio.js
assemble-contrib-toc-example: Example for generating a Table of Contents using Assemble.
assemble-contrib-wordcount: Assemble plugin for displaying a word-count on blog posts or pages.