Nineteen-Fourty-Eight (1948)

A minimalist web framework

1948 is designed to help you make a simple and performant website without unnecessary cruft. It consists of:

• a static templating system,
• an extensible, lightweight webserver,
• a set of management scripts,
• and a set of hooks for plugin integration.

Prerequisits

Currently, 1948 only supports Unix-like systems. Using 1948 requires:

• git
• Python 3
• pip
• Go
• make

Setup

• Clone the repository by running git clone https://github.com/alexbecker/1948.
• (Recommended) Create a Python 3 virtualenv in the repository.
• Install Jinja2 by running pip install jinja2.
• Run ./init_project.sh to create a new project.

Customization

The init_project.sh script creates a skeleton project for you in the local/ directory. The resulting files can be customized to create your site:

• The local/env.sh script is used to export configuration variables for various scripts and for the webserver.
• The static files of your site are built from local/templates/ using local/template_conf.py for any configuration.
• The server exposes hooks for extension in local/go/src/local/, and can be modified to add dynamic behavior to your site.
• The Makefile at local/Makefile exposes a local target that is made whenever the project is made. Since this is made after the static files, the STATIC_DEPS variable is available and targets can be appended to it to make before static files are made.
• The local/build.sh script can be extended to add additional steps to the build process.
• The local/deploy.sh script can be extended to add additional steps to the deploy process.
• The local/server_side/ directory will be copied to the server when the project is deployed.
• The local/server_side/install.sh script can be extended to add additional steps to the server-side installation.

Building and Deploying

To build the entire site, run ./build. Alternatively, individual targets found in Makefile can be built directly.

To deploy the site, run source local/env.sh; ./deploy.sh (or provide other environment variables if desired).

To install server-side dependencies, on the server run source env.sh; ./install.sh (note that this is a different install script, located in server_side/).

Plugins

There is not yet a plugin repository or any type of plugin management system. However, there are hooks built into the webserver, build system and various scripts to allow creating plugins.

By convention, a plugin is installed in the local/plugins/ directory, and contains an install.sh script that should be run on first setup. If the plugin requires installation on the Plugins may require additional configuration, or server-side installation, conventially via a script at plugins/<plugin_dir>/server_side/install.sh.

Tips

• If you want to maintain multiple projects, make local/ a symlink.
• If you want to deploy to multiple environments, e.g. a dev or staging environment, create additonal local/env_*.sh files.

TODOs

• Plugin management infrastructure.
• Story for handling upgrades, since install scripts are intended for fresh installations.