Override page 'url' and 'save_as' directly from the page metadata

[bbinet]

In some cases, we'd like to be able to output a specific article or page to a different url that the one which is specified in the ARTICLE_URL/ARTICLE_SAVE_AS or PAGE_URL/PAGE_SAVE_AS setting.

One typical use case is the ability to set a specific page as index instead of the articles list, so this will address #400.

[bbinet]

Docs are still missing in this pr.

[bbinet]

I've also seen that @michaelreneer had asked for this feature on irc tonight. Here is his use case:
"""
I have 2 pages "About" and "404". I want the "About" page to be saved to '{slug}/index.html' and I want the "404" page to be saved to '{slug}.html' any ideas?
I have two ways to do it, one really dirty way... set the about page slug = "about/index" and the 404 slug = "404 and set the PAGE_SAVE_AS = '{slug}.html
this works but is really shady
second way is to make a template outside of the theme and use TEMPLATE_PAGES to create the 404 instead of making it as a page + status: hidden, but I would rather not put
content in a template (even if the template is not in the theme)
and even if its only one line of content
I wonder if anyone else would find a page level override for the PAGE_SAVE_AS setting useful (similar to the TEMPLATE override)?
"""

[bbinet]

Now with some documentation: 802c9d1.

[elemoine]

I'd like my site's main page (/index.html) to not list articles, but to include an aboutme page instead. This pull request seems to cover my use-case.

I use INDEX_SAVE_AS = blog.html for the notmyidea index.html template to be saved as blog.html in the output dir. But I'd need to add a "Blog" item linking to blog.html to the menu, and I don't know how to achieve that. I'd also like not to have the categories in the menu, which, it seems, is covered by #578.

All this sounds over-complex to me. The notmyidea theme lists the articles on the index/front page, making it work otherwise through config options sounds like abusing the theme to me.

[almet]

@elemoine I'm not sure to understand what you want to say with your previous message.

Is there a problem? Are you suggesting to fix things differently?

[elemoine]

Sorry for being unclear. I think this pull request does provide a relevant feature. I'm just saying that having many _SAVE_AS settings may be the sign of me abusing the notmyidea theme, and that it may be time to write my own, possible notmyidea-based, theme.

[almet]

I completely agree, the themes are, or at least should be the main extension point of pelican

[elemoine]

Thanks for confirming. The docs say that the "simple" theme can be extended through inheritance. Wondering why this isn't the case for notmyidea, and other themes. I'll investigate. Thanks again.

[wking]

This relates to my work in #671 on EXTRA_PAGE_METADATA in #671. See 43b10c3 and 518a3da.

[erichgoldman]

This sounds useful, but if you just want to change the content of the index page, you can just edit the content block, though I don't believe there is a way right now to slip in a specific article, maybe if you import the a page specific template?

[justinmayer]

@bbinet / @ametaireau: This seems to allow people to use an arbitrary page as their home page, which many folks have requested. Docs are there, tests are passing. Any reason not to merge now?

[bbinet]

I'm the one who submitted ths PR, so I'm of course +1 to merge :-) This was just waiting for a review from somebody else.

[justinmayer]

Works very well in my testing. Nice job, Bruno! 😄

The only minor hiccup, and it's by no means a blocker, is when I change the metadata in the samples/content/pages/override_url_saveas.rst file to:

:url: /
:save_as: index.html

... the URL in the top nav for Home is: http://localhost:8000// (note the extra slash)

As a workaround, when I set the metadata to:

:url: 
:save_as: index.html

... then the URL appears as I expect: http://localhost:8000/

When I tested on my own site content, which uses "clean" URLs, I did not experience the double-slash and did not need the above workaround.

Like I said, I don't consider this to be a blocker. Just thought I'd pass along the results of my testing.

[justinmayer]

As noted previously, I've tested this feature and have found it functions according to expectations. Given that this feature is requested on a near-daily basis, it seems it will help a great many folks. Merging.