Welcome to the homepage of webgen!

webgen is a free (GPL-licensed) command line application for generating static websites. You could write a static website by hand, of course. But by using webgen you have several advantages:

  • The page layout is separated from the content: if you change the layout, all pages that use that layout are automatically updated. You can have any number of different layouts and even nested ones.

  • Write content in a markup language: The content and layout files can be written in a markup language like Markdown, Textile or Haml which lets you concentrate more on what you write.

  • Automation: webgen can automatically generate, for example, menus and breadcrumb trails for you.

  • Dynamic content: It is easy to add some dynamic content if there is a need for it.

  • Self-Contained websites: webgen websites are self contained since all generated links are relative ones. This allows one to preview a generated site without a web server!

The above list should just give you a glimpse of what is possible with webgen. Have a look at the features page for a more complete list and a feature comparison to other static website generators.

Although webgen is very powerful it is also very easy to use. A basic website can be created in just one step by executing

webgen create mywebsite

This command will create the directory mywebsite which houses the newly created webgen website and some content files to start with. By running the command webgen inside the mywebsite directory, the website will be generated and put into the out directory where it can be viewed with any browser:

cd mywebsite
webgen                # -> creates an out/ directory with the HTML output

Actually, this website was generated with webgen and provides an online demonstration of its features. For example, the menu that you can see at the top was created dynamically. For more information have a look at the documentation!

Feature requests, bugs, …

If you have an idea for a new feature for webgen, request it. If you have found a bug, you should report it here. Also, there are forums and mailing lists available (the mailing list is mirrored to the webgen-users google group) if you have any questions! You can also visit the IRC channel #webgen on Freenode where I can be found whenever I’m online.

Author

  • Thomas Leitner
  • e-Mail: <t_leitner@gmx.at>
  • GPG Key-Id: 0xB2D0A854