Qgoda Version 0.9.3 Released

Qgoda version 0.9.3 is now available for download either as a regular Perl install, a docker image or from github. It is mostly a consolidation release but also features some important changes.

New Configuration Variable Names

The most important changes from a user perspective have been made to the configuration. All underscores ("_") in variable names are now replaced by hyphens ("-"), for example exclude_watch has now become exclude-watch.

Configuration Validation With JSON Schema

The configuration file _config.yaml is now validated against a JSON schema as a safe-guard against invalid configurations. On the other hand, the configuration is now more flexible because you can often simplify the configuration and Qgoda will "repair" it for you. For example the values of the Qgoda helpers are actually arrays but you can still write this:

helpers:
  build: gulp

The string "gulp" will now be automatically coerced into an array:

helpers:
    build:
      - gulp

This is a general pattern. You can use it wherever an array is required, when you have just one value. The same goes for defaults:

defaults:
    - files: /en
      values:
        lingua: en
    - files:
        - /de
      values:
        lingua: de

The two versions for "en" and "de" are equivalent. You can always check your results with qgoda config.

By the way, you can inspect the JSON schema with the new command qgoda schema.

Embedded JavaScript Engine

The JSON schema validation is done with Ajv, the same library that for example webpack is using. But Ajv is written in JavaScript and there is no alternative implementation in Perl available.

In order to use it, the Duktape JavaScript engine was embedded into Qgoda via JavaScript::Duktape::XS. You can even access this engine with the new command qgoda javascript or its alias qgoda js. Try qgoda javascript --help if you are curious.

Scaffolding With Yeoman

Work has started on a Yeoman generator for Qgoda. See https://www.npmjs.com/package/generator-qgoda for instructions.

You can currently generate a basic site with development web server. Not that much but already enough to generate a site with a sane structure.

Other Changes

See https://metacpan.org/source/GUIDO/Qgoda-v0.9.2/Changes for a complete list of changes.

Next Steps

The plans for the next week are:

• Further improvement of the Yeoman generator.
• Replace the HTMLFilter plug-in interface with a new API based on cheerio. You can then write your own filters in JavaScript or Perl but with the familiar jQuery syntax.
• Hoedown will become the default Markdown processor.

Apart from that the continuous goals are the completion of the documentation on this site and better test coverage. Stay tuned!