What's on this page

• Create the generator class
• Register the generator
• Build

Create a custom pages generator

A pages generator creates pages without Markdown files (for example from an API or a database), or alters existing pages. Cecil uses its own generators to build sections, taxonomies, pagination, etc., and you can add yours.

Create the generator class

Add a PHP class in the extensions directory of your site, in the Cecil\Generator namespace. It extends AbstractGenerator, implements GeneratorInterface, and adds pages to $this->generatedPages in the generate() method.

The following example creates one page per item returned by a JSON API:

extensions/Cecil/Generator/Posts.php

<?php
namespace Cecil\Generator;

use Cecil\Collection\Page\Page;
use Cecil\Collection\Page\Type;

class Posts extends AbstractGenerator implements GeneratorInterface
{
    public function generate(): void
    {
        $posts = json_decode(file_get_contents('https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts'), true) ?? [];

        foreach ($posts as $post) {
            $page = (new Page("posts/{$post['id']}"))
                ->setType(Type::PAGE)
                ->setPath("posts/{$post['id']}")
                ->setSection('posts')
                ->setBodyHtml('<p>' . htmlspecialchars($post['body']) . '</p>')
                ->setVariable('title', $post['title']);
            $this->generatedPages->add($page);
        }
    }
}

Register the generator

Add the class name to the pages.generators list in cecil.yml, with a priority as key:

pages:
  generators:
    35: Cecil\Generator\Posts

Generators run in ascending priority order. The built-in ones use priorities from 10 (DefaultPages) to 90 (Redirect): with 35, the generated pages are created before sections (40), so thanks to setSection() they are grouped in the posts section like pages from Markdown files.

Build

php cecil.phar build

The pages are now available at /posts/1/, /posts/2/, etc., rendered with the default page templates.