Suggestion: don't render if permalink: false and eleventyExcludeFromCollections: true

[nhoizey]

While trying to identify the source of issue #1696, I discovered that templates/layouts are evaluated even if their permalink is set to false, either directly in the source file Front Matter or via the data cascade, including _data/eleventyComputed.js.

Here's a reduced test case, in the computed-permalink-false branch of this repository:
https://github.com/nhoizey/11ty-reduced-test-cases/tree/computed-permalink-false

If the template/layout tries to use {{ page.outputPath }} or {{ page.url }} with filters built for strings, there will be an error, as these have a false value.

For example, I had to replace {% if 'archives' in page.url %} with {% if page.url != false and 'archives' in page.url %} because {% if 'archives' in page.url %} gives an error when {{ page.url }} equals false.

As no page will be generated, it might be better not to parse the content of the source file, apart from the Front Matter, once the data cascade has been completed, if permalink is evaluated to false.

It might even make the full build faster.

[nhoizey]

An alternative could be to set {{ page.outputPath }} and {{ page.url }} anyway, even if no file is written in the end, to prevent issues when using them in templates with filters.

[edwardhorsford]

I've run in to this myself - having to use eleventyIgnore in a really manual way to get Eleventy to stop evaluating a file. I'd much prefer if I could do this on the basis of frontmatter - which could be related to the requested feature of supporting drafts or a callback / frontmatter / function to determine whether to process a file.

[zachleat]

First thoughts here: permalink: false only means it doesn’t write to the file system. It can still be used in collections.

Though, fair enough that it needn’t evaluate layouts if it only applies to collections.

[nhoizey]

@zachleat that's right, I should have mentioned that I also set eleventyExcludeFromCollections to true when I set permalink to false for drafts during production builds.

If eleventyExcludeFromCollections is not set to true, a collection might still want to extract an excerpt or even the full content from the source.

So maybe what I suggest here could be done if both eleventyExcludeFromCollections === true AND permalink === false?

[zachleat]

Ah hmm, that’s a fair idea!

I do want to point out in the mean time that permalink objects (added for serverless but don’t require serverless) solve this problem already: https://www.11ty.dev/docs/plugins/serverless/#step-3-use-a-permalink-object

Templates only render with a classic permalink or a permalink object with a build key.

Code:

• eleventy/src/TemplateBehavior.js

  Line 16 in 975816f

  isRenderable() {

• eleventy/src/TemplateMap.js

  Line 454 in 975816f

  if (!map.template.behavior.isRenderable()) {

[zachleat]

This repository is now using lodash style issue management for enhancements. This means enhancement issues will now be closed instead of leaving them open.

View the enhancement backlog here. Don’t forget to upvote the top comment with 👍!

[andy-bond]

@zachleat thanks for your comment above about how to really, really disable outputting the file. Personally, if this is the mechanism to fully remove a page from outputting (to collections etc) - this might be helpful to have documented in the Collections page or Permalink page.

I, like a few others, wanted a "draft" mechanism, but ran into issues with permalink: false causing issues in unexpected places because it was still present when doing things like {% if item.link in page.url %}.

I ended up with the following, based on @pdehaan's example here.:

module.exports = {
	layout: 'base',
	tags: 'documentation',
	eleventyComputed: {
		permalink: (data) => {
			if (data.draft && process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production') {
				return {}; // <-- really, really remove from build
			}
			return data.permalink !== '' ? data.permalink : `/${data.page.fileSlug}/`;
		},
		eleventyExcludeFromCollections: (data) => {
			if (data.draft && process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production') {
				return true;
			}
			return data.eleventyExcludeFromCollections;
		},
	},
};