Guard Jekyll Plus

A Guard plugin for smarter Jekyll watching.

Gem Version

Features:

  • Changing static files won't trigger a jekyll build! Files are copied/removed instead.
  • Batched processing! (Adding a directory of n files triggers a single build)
  • Reads options from your YAML config file(s)
  • Supports multiple config files (Jekyll 1.0)
  • Serve with Jekyll or Rack (just add rack to your gemfile)
  • Clear and colorized output

If you want to compile javascripts, take a look at guard-stitch-plus and jekyll-stitch-plus.

Here's a look

Colorized output

Installation

If using Bundler, add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'guard-jekyll-plus'

And then run:

$ bundle

Or install it manually with:

$ gem install guard-jekyll-plus

Usage

Navigate to your Jekyll project directory and create a Guardfile using:

$ guard init jekyll-plus

Or if you already have a Guardfile, add a Jekyll guard.

ignore /^_site/ # NOTE: this can interfere with Guard::LiveReload

guard "jekyll-plus" do
  watch /.*/
end

Add Guardfile to the list of files in your Jekyll's exclude configuration to prevent it from being copied into your site directory.

Then run the guard and Jekyll will begin watching your project.

$ bundle exec guard

If your Jekyll project has a non-standard directory stucture like this:

- source/
- public/
  _config.yml

You would do this instead:

guard "jekyll-plus" do
  watch /^source/
  watch /_config.yml/
end

For the most part that's all you'll ever need to do. There are some things you can configure though.

Configuration

This guard has these configurations.

Config Description Default
extensions Array of file extensions to trigger Jekyll build ['md', 'mkd', 'mkdn', 'markdown', 'textile', 'html', 'haml', 'slim', 'xml', 'yml']
config Array of configuration files ['_config.yml']
serve Serve your site with Jekyll or a Rack server false
drafts Build your site with draft posts false
future Build your site with future dated posts false
config_hash Use a config hash instead of an array of files nil
silent Slience all output other than exception message false
msg_prefix Output messages are prefixed with with this 'Jekyll'
rack_config Optional configuration for using the rack server nil

Note: customizations to the extensions configuration are additive.

Using Jekyll Server

To use Jekyll's built-in server, simply set :serve => true in your rack options

ignore /^_site/ # NOTE: this can interfere with Guard::LiveReload

guard "jekyll-plus", :serve => true do
  watch /.*/
end

Using Rack Server

Simply add gem 'rack' to your Gemfile and Jekyll Plus will use Rack instead with a config file which redirects 404s and auto-appends index.html to directory urls. If you want to use Thin, add gem 'thin' instead.

If you wish to use your own rack server configuration, simply drop a config.ru file into your site root, or use the option :rack_config => 'path/to/config.ru' to tell Jeklly Plus where to look for your rack config file.

Configuring Jekyll watched file extensions

Here's how you would add txt to the list of file extensions which triggers a Jekyll build.

ignore /^_site/ # NOTE: this can interfere with Guard::LiveReload

guard "jekyll-plus", :extensions => ['txt'] do
  watch /.*/
end

Now Guard will be watching for changes to txt, md, mkd, markdown, textile, html, haml, slim, xml, yml files. When these files change Guard will trigger a Jekyll build. Files which don't match these extensions will be simply copied over to the destination directory when a change occurs, or deleted if appropriate.

Configuring Jekyll config file

Here's how you might tell Jekyll to read from multiple configuration files.

ignore /^_site/ # NOTE: this can interfere with Guard::LiveReload

guard "jekyll-plus", :config => ['settings.yml', 'override.yml'] do
  watch /.*/
end

Contributing

If you find this to be busticated, let me know in the issues.

License

Copyright (c) 2013 Brandon Mathis

MIT License

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.