jekyll-cmd-line

Description

jekyll-cmd-line is a Python script that makes it easier to create posts and drafts for a Jekyll-powered site, particularly when you maintain multiple sites.

Requirements

jekyll-cmd-line has been tested with Python 2.6.

It requires the PyYAML library.

Configuration File

To use jekyll-cmd-line you must create a simple YAML config file that is either passed explicitly to the script, or saved with the name .jekyll in your HOME directory.

The config file includes the following parameters:

• default_site: The name of the default site for multi-site configs. (optional)
• editor: The path to the editor you want to edit posts or drafts in (optional). If this is not present, the value of the EDITOR environment variable is used.
• sites: A list of sites and their configuration attributes.

Each site in the sites list has the following attributes:

• name: The name of the site. (required)
• location: The directory of the site. (required)
• layout: The layout that should be specified in the YAML Front Matter for new posts and drafts in this site. (optional, defaults to 'none')
• extension: The file extension to use when creating post and draft files. (optional)

For a full example, see sample.jekyll.

Usage

These examples assume you have a .jekyll file in your HOME directory with contents of sample.jekyll.

Print usage

jekyll-cmd-line --help

Create a new draft in your default site

jekyll-cmd-line -d "My Next Great Blog Post"

Create a new draft in a non-default site

jekyll-cmd-line -s journal -d "Deep Thoughts"

Create a draft, pass in a different config

jekyll-cmd-line -d "A Post Somewhere Else" -c alternate.jekyll

Create a post from an existing draft

When you create a new post in a given site, jekyll-cmd-line will first check to see if a matching draft exists. The match is based on filename patterns.

If a match is found, you'll be prompted if want to convert the existing draft to a post. For example:

jekyll-cmd-line -s journal -p "deep"

This command will find the "Deep Thoughts" draft and prompt:

Found matching drafts. Select a draft or hit ENTER to create a new post.

1: deep-thoughts.markdown

Draft number (or ENTER for new post):

At this point, you can choose to convert draft 1 to a post by entering 1 and hitting ENTER. This will move deep-thoughts.markdown from the drafts directory to the posts directory and rename it with today's date.

If a matching draft was found, but you just want to create a new post, hit ENTER. The draft will stay put and a new post is created.

Create a post

jekyll-cmd-line -p "A Brand New Post"

Tips

Bash aliases are helpful. I use the following:

• alias jd="jekyll-cmd-line -d"
• alias jp="jekyll-cmd-line -p"