# UNK

## a very small static site generator

**UNK** is an experiment in minimalism.
It is a templating static site generator
with an included markup language
that all fits with 1000 bytes.
There are three main scripts:

- **UNK**, a bash script that applies the template
  to each page and publishes them to the output dir,
- **LHT**, an awk script that serves as a (very) basic
  markup language, and
- **TM**, the default template script for **UNK**.

**UNK** and **LHT** are 250 bytes each, for a total of 500 bytes.
**TM** takes up the remaining 500 bytes
of the target 1000 bytes.
You are, of course, free to make the template file as large
and involved as you like.

# DETAILS

## unk

**UNK** takes a set of files in a directory, applies a template to them,
and output them into another directory as HTML files ready for a server.
To keep a very small size, **UNK** delegates most file processing to **TM**,
the main template.  It delegates by using an idea found in
[shab](https://github.com/zimbatm/shab):
each input file is read as a `heredoc`, which enables
shell interpolation.
So the template, as opposed to the engine,
can do all the heavy-lifting of index generation and navigation and such.

Content goes into the following (hard-coded) directories:

- **I/**, for written (*__i__nput*) content (the pages of the site),
- **S/**, for ***s***tatic content (css, images, etc.), &
- **O/**, for the (*__o__utput*) website, ready for `rsync`ing
          to a server.

If there is no **TM** in the directory where **UNK** is run,
one will be created that will simply `cat` the file being processed.

The following variables are made available to **TM**:

- **FN**: the *FileName* (with directories removed)
  of the file being processed
- **TT**: the *TiTle* (the first line) of the file
- **BD**: the *BoDy* (the rest) of the file

as well as this function:

- **X**, for *eXpand*: the `shab` stand-in.
  It is much simpler than `shab`, and will fail if the template
  (or if it nests templates, one of the nested ones)
  has a `ZZ` on a line by itself, due to its `heredoc` nature.

and these aliases (though they're more an artefact of saving space
in the script, but they can be used in templates):

- **c**: `cat`
- **q**: `test`
- **e**: `echo`

As mentioned above, templates can be nested.
Simply call another template from **TM** with the **X** function.

## lht

**LHT** stands for *Less HyperText*,
because that's what you're writing when you're writing it
(though not much less than HTML).
Basically,
blank lines are interpreted as `<p>` tag breaks,
unless the previous source paragraph started with `<` and ended with `>`.
It also has support for three inline spans:

- `*em*` or `_em_` as *em*
- `**strong**` or `__strong__` as **strong**
- `` `code` `` as `code`.

Everything else is just HTML.

**LHT** was inspired, in part, by
[Writing HTML in HTML](http://john.ankarstrom.se/html) by John Ankarstrom,
as well as some other articles I can't think of right now.
I liked the idea, but some tags in HTML are just annoying to write
over and over, and take me out of the flow of writing prose.
So I fixed those few tags.
**The inline tags are definitely subject to change.**

# Why?

I was bored and decided I'd try to write a static site generator
that could fit in a [toot] (500 characters).
I [wrote][1] [a few][2] [of them][3],
making them smaller and smaller each time.
By the end, I was left with a *tiny* script
that delegated almost *all* the work to the template file.
That script became **UNK** in this repo.

[toot]: https://writing.exchange/web/statuses/102333562361891512
[1]: https://writing.exchange/web/statuses/102334522981990897
[2]: https://writing.exchange/web/statuses/102334522981990897
[3]: https://writing.exchange/web/statuses/102339851501562648

I was feeling pretty high on my horse after writing the tiny SSG,
so I thought,
*[maybe I could try for a tootable Markdown converter next][4]* --
boy, was I wrong about that.
Markdown is *way* too complicated to fit in 500 bytes.
So I just wrote the Really Important Parts: `<p>` and some inlines.

[4]: https://writing.exchange/@acdw/102339290120562386

# LEGAL

Copyright &copy; 2019 Case Duckworth &lt;<acdw@acdw.net>&gt;.

This work is free.
You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of
the Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License, Version 2,
as published by Sam Hocevar.
See the LICENSE file for more details.

## Why this license?

I was going to go with a stricter license like the GPL,
but realized that

1. this software isn't so important or time-consuming that I need
   others to credit me or redistribute the project under the same terms, and
2. the GPL is *way* too long for a project like this.
   It's over 35 times *bigger* than the entirety of this project,
   not counting the content or this README.
   It would weigh down the entire undertaking.
   The WTFPL, by contrast, is a trim 443 characters,
   which is right in keeping with the smallness of this project.