jekyll-git-mtime plugin

A Jekyll plugin that sets the page variable page.mtime to the time of the last commit or change.

Prerequisites

The git executable must be found within PATH.

Primary Usecase

Display the time of the last change in the page footer. Usually the time of last change shall refer to the current page, only. Regarding special pages like index or sitemap, the time of last change regarding any page shall be used instead.

Usage

Set page.mtime based on the history of the current page

Per default page.mtime is set to the time of the last commit related to the current page or to the page's file mtime if there are uncommited changes regarding the page.

Within any page:

{{ page.mtime }}

Format date

The liquid filter date maybe used for formatting:

{{ page.mtime | date: '%Y-%m-%d' }}

Set page.mtime based on the history of the whole site

By specifying mtime: site or mtime: branch the plugin is configured to update the mtime-value based on the history of the whole site. This means that page.mtime is set to the time of the last commit (regarding the current branch & the whole site) or to the instant of the current build (site.time) if there are uncommited changes.

---
mtime: site
---
{{ page.mtime }}

Set page.mtime to the instant of the current build (site.time)

page.mtime can be set to the the instant of the current build (site.time) by specifying mtime: build or mtime: site.time in the yaml frontmatter.

    ---
    mtime: build
    ---
    {{ page.mtime | date: '%Y-%m-%d' }}=={{ site.time | date: '%Y-%m-%d' }}

Retain other values assigned to page.mtime

Any other value assigned to page.mtime other than the keywords explained above is retained:

---
mtime: something
---
{{ page.mtime }}{% comment %} prints 'something' {% endcomment %}