This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Ruby Buzz by Mauricio Fernández. Original Post: Building my site with rdocsite Feed Title: fail unless class << self; self end Feed URL: http://www.thekode.net/blog/Tech/Ruby/syndication.rss Feed Description: Ruby babblings. Latest Ruby Buzz Posts Latest Ruby Buzz Posts by Mauricio Fernández Latest Posts From fail unless class << self; self end

• Rdoc markup
• file-based system: simply put a new file into the tree and everything will be updated
• written in Ruby!!!

Now I see that what I really wanted was a Wiki-like tool to generate my site. Well, actually quite different from the standard wiki spirit: I don’t want to edit online, or to have concurrent edition, or anything; I only want to be able to create my pages easily, move nodes around without links breaking, have plugins automatically generate table of contents and such niceties, etc.

So I decided to write my own tool.

rdocsite

These are the features I retained:

• RDoc markup
• templating system (RDoc’s :-)
• WikiNames, with some enhancements to allow hierarchies (a WikiName will link to the closer node in the hierarchical tree; name clashes are resolved sensibly). You can also specify (part of) the document hierarchy to find the WikiName in.
• meta-data: each node can have associated meta-data, which drives plugin operations and template expansion. Moreover, meta-data can be inherited along the hierarchy.

And of course, still written in Ruby :-)

The initial code took around 3 days. I’m now cleaning a bit, reworking the plugin system and thinking of new plugins, but the code is already functional and I use it to generate my website at www.thekode.net.