ace/README.textile

h1. About

Ace is a static page generator like "Nanoc":http://nanoc.stoneship.org, "Jekyll":https://github.com/mojombo/jekyll or "Webby":http://webby.rubyforge.org/tutorial. How is it different? Well, it's better :) ! I really like Nanoc and I used it for quite a while, but it's not flexible enough. If you need to generate a lot of pages on the fly, it's a hassle. It provides helpers, but helpers are – let's face it – programming style we used to use years back when we yet believed that PHP is actually a really nice language.

Ace chose an OOP approach

Another common proble of these generators is, that they are way too opinionated. Thanks Webby, but I don't give a damn about your Sitemap, thank you very much!

Also, last but not least, Ace has a real template inheritance. Layouts are for kids, real men use template inheritance! What's the advantage? It's incredibly flexible. You can have

h1. Why you should be interested in ace?

In Ace, every page is an instance
Typically I want to define methods, like @post.excerpt

There are also *generators* available for easier generating items on the fly.

Ace has *template inheritance*. I love template inheritance, it's more flexible pattern than layouts.

Tasks for deployment are included.

h1. The boot process

# Load @boot.rb@ where the
# load the rules (controllers / globs mapping)
# load & instantiate the items: only the renderables (concrete post)
# run the filters, layoutin' ... actually this can be defined in the controller
# match the routes, write the files

h1. Links

* "Ace: Static Sites Generator":http://blog.101ideas.cz/posts/ace-static-site-generator.html