# clover sitegen framework

this repository contains clover's "sitegen" framework, which is a set of tools
that assist building websites. these tools power https://paperclover.net.

- HTML "Server Side Rendering") engine written from scratch.
    - A more practical JSX runtime (`class` instead of `className`, etc).
    - Transparent integration with [Marko][1] to mix component types.
    - MDX support for text-heavy content pages.
- Incremental static site generator and build system
    - Build entire production site at start, incremental updates when pages
      change; Build system state survives coding sessions.
    - The only difference in development and production mode is hidden
      source-maps and stripped assertions and `console.debug` calls. The site
      you see locally is the site you see deployed.
- Tools for building complex, content heavy web sites.
    - Static asset serving with ETag and build-time compression.
    - Dynamic server side rendering from within backend code.
    - Databases with a typed SQLite wrapper.
- Built on the battle-tested Node.js runtime. Partial support for Deno and Bun.

[1]: https://next.markojs.com

Included is `src`, which contains `paperclover.net`. Website highlights:

- [Question/Answer board, custom markdown parser and components][q+a].
- [File viewer with prefetching + client-side navigation][file].
- [Personal, friends-only blog with password protection][friends].

[q+a]: https://paperclover.net/q+a
[file]: https://paperclover.net/file
[friends]: https://paperclover.net/friends

## Development

minimum system requirements:
- a cpu with at least 1 core.
- random access memory.
- windows 7 or later, macos, or linux operating system.

```
npm install

# production generation
node run generate

# live development environment
node repl
```

`repl.js` will open a read-eval-print-loop where plugin state is cached (on my
2014 dev laptop, startup time is 600-1000ms). every file in `framework` and
`src` besides `hot.ts` can be edited and quickly re-run. for example, to run
`framework/generate.ts`, you can type "generate" into the shell. since
top-level await is not supported (plugins are built on `require` as Node has
poor module support), CLIs can include a `main` function, which is executed
when the REPL runs it.

TODO: in the future, the repl will have a "dev" command which will do the incremental
site build + host, possibly immediatly on opening the repl.

## Contributions

No contributions to `src` accepted, only `framework`.