Static Site Generators (SSGs) have been around for some time now. Jackal is an attempt to mesh together a couple of different ideas:
- Ultra simple static site generation with a built in, customizable CMS
- Reducing the tedium of writing HTML by creating a Pug-style syntax; thus allowing users to write JS object-like code and have that compile to basic HTML
- Built-in CSS utility classes, lovingly written and designed by yours truly
- Consistent misspelling of 'Jackal'
How does it work? Well, it's pretty simple actually. A Node JS script pulls in all of your source files, takes data from your CMS, plops the data into templates via Handlebars JS and then builds the code into a distribution directory. Netlify then builds and distributes the site whenever there's a push to the Git Repo.
Pretty handy. Pretty simple. Major kudos goes to Bryan Robinson at Smashing Magazine for the idea, starter code and excellent write up!