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[mediagoblin.git] / mediagoblin / plugins / flatpagesfile / README.rst

.. _flatpagesfile-chapter:

======================
 flatpagesfile plugin
======================

This is the flatpages file plugin. It allows you to add pages to your
MediaGoblin instance which are not generated from user content. For
example, this is useful for these pages:

* About this site
* Terms of service
* Privacy policy
* How to get an account here
* ...


How to configure
================

Add the following to your MediaGoblin .ini file in the ``[plugins]``
section::

    [[mediagoblin.plugins.flatpagesfile]]


This tells MediaGoblin to load the flatpagesfile plugin. This is the
subsection that you'll do all flatpagesfile plugin configuration in.


How to add pages
================

To add a new page to your site, you need to do two things:

1. add a route to the MediaGoblin .ini file in the flatpagesfile
   subsection

2. write a template that will get served when that route is requested


Routes
------

First, let's talk about the route.

A route is a key/value in your configuration file.

The key for the route is the route name You can use this with `url()`
in templates to have MediaGoblin automatically build the urls for
you. It's very handy.

It should be "unique" and it should be alphanumeric characters and
hyphens. I wouldn't put spaces in there.

Examples: ``flatpages-about``, ``about-view``, ``contact-view``, ...

The value has two parts separated by commas:

1. **route path**: This is the url that this route matches.

   Examples: ``/about``, ``/contact``, ``/pages/about``, ...

   You can do anything with this that you can do with the routepath
   parameter of `routes.Route`. For more details, see `the routes
   documentation <http://routes.readthedocs.org/en/latest/>`_.

   Example: ``/siteadmin/{adminname:\w+}``

   .. Note::

      If you're doing something fancy, enclose the route in single
      quotes.

      For example: ``'/siteadmin/{adminname:\w+}'``

2. **template**: The template to use for this url. The template is in
   the flatpagesfile template directory, so you just need to specify
   the file name.

   Like with other templates, if it's an HTML file, it's good to use
   the ``.html`` extensions.

   Examples: ``index.html``, ``about.html``, ``contact.html``, ...


Here's an example configuration that adds two flat pages: one for an
"About this site" page and one for a "Terms of service" page::

    [[mediagoblin.plugins.flatpagesfile]]
    about-view = '/about', about.html
    terms-view = '/terms', terms.html


.. Note::

   The order in which you define the routes in the config file is the
   order in which they're checked for incoming requests.


Templates
---------

To add pages, you must edit template files on the file system in your
`local_templates` directory.

The directory structure looks kind of like this::

    local_templates
    |- flatpagesfile
       |- flatpage1.html
       |- flatpage2.html
       |- ...


The ``.html`` file contains the content of your page. It's just a
template like all the other templates you have.

Here's an example that extends the `flatpagesfile/base.html`
template::

   {% extends "flatpagesfile/base.html" %}
   {% block mediagoblin_content %}
   <h1>About this site</h1>
   <p>
     This site is a MediaGoblin instance set up to host media for
     me, my family and my friends.
   </p>
   {% endblock %}


.. Note::

   If you have a bunch of flatpages that kind of look like one
   another, take advantage of Jinja2 template extending and create a
   base template that the others extend.


Recipes
=======

Url variables
-------------

You can handle urls like ``/about/{name}`` and access the name that's
passed in in the template.

Sample route::

    about-page = '/about/{name}', about.html

Sample template::

   {% extends "flatpagesfile/base.html" %}
   {% block mediagoblin_content %}

   <h1>About page for {{ request.matchdict['name'] }}</h1>

   {% endblock %}

See the `the routes documentation
<http://routes.readthedocs.org/en/latest/>`_ for syntax details for
the route. Values will end up in the ``request.matchdict`` dict.