sbt-ghpages

The GitHub Pages plugin for sbt makes it simple to publish a project website to GitHub Pages.

First, you need a site to publish, or you may wish to start simply with your project's Scaladoc API documentation. The sbt-site plugin has you covered: it can help to manage several popular static site generation tools automatically from sbt.

Start by setting up sbt-site, and once you have it locally generating a site and/or Scaladoc to your liking, sbt-ghpages will integrate to publish it on the web with GitHub Pages where it will be served at https://{your username}.github.io/{your project}/.

Adding the plugin to your project

Note, sbt-ghpages now requires the use of sbt version 0.13.5 or greater.

Create a project/ghpages.sbt file that looks like the following:

addSbtPlugin("com.github.sbt" % "sbt-ghpages" % "0.8.0")

Then in your build.sbt file, simply enable the GhpagesPlugin via an enablePlugins statement for your project, and specify the location of your github repository (for more information on enabling and disabling sbt plugins, see the sbt plugin documentation):

enablePlugins(GhpagesPlugin)

git.remoteRepo := "[email protected]:{your username}/{your project}.git"

Settings

sbt-ghpages provides the following optional setting keys for use in your build.sbt file:

ghpagesRepository - Location of the sandbox repository to be used to check out the gh-pages branch.
ghpagesNoJekyll - If set to true will cause a .nojekyll file to be generated, to prevent GitHub from running Jekyll on pushed sites.
ghpagesBranch - Name of the branch in which to store static files. Defaults to gh-pages.

Initializing the gh-pages branch

GitHub Pages works by processing the contents of a special branch in your project repository named gh-pages and then serving your static files.

Before using sbt-ghpages, you must create the gh-pages branch in your repository and push the branch to GitHub. The quick steps are:

# Using a fresh, temporary clone is safest for this procedure
$ pushd /tmp
$ git clone [email protected]:youruser/yourproject.git
$ cd yourproject

# Create branch with no history or content
$ git checkout --orphan gh-pages
$ git rm -rf .

# Establish the branch existence
$ git commit --allow-empty -m "Initialize gh-pages branch"
$ git push origin gh-pages

# Return to original working copy clone, we're finished with the /tmp one
$ popd
$ rm -rf /tmp/yourproject

Now that this is done, you can begin using the plugin with sbt.

Publishing your site

Simply run the ghpagesPushSite task to publish your website.

How it works

Behind the scenes, sbt-ghpages will create a new "sandbox" clone of your Git repository, with its location determined by the ghpagesRepository setting key (by default set to a directory under ~/.sbt/ghpages). Whenever you run sbt ghpagesPushSite it will copy your site content into that sandbox repository, commit it to the gh-pages branch, and push the branch to GitHub.

The sandbox repo approach spares you from doing the gh-pages checkout/commit dance yourself each time you update your site content, while avoiding any mistakes with dirty or untracked files in your normal working copy clone.

Publishing Scaladoc

A common use for sbt-ghpages is to automate the publishing of Scaladoc. If you wish to use it for this, first ask sbt-site to generate your Scaladoc by adding an enablePlugins directive for the SiteScaladocPlugin (included in sbt-site) to your build.sbt see the sbt-site documentation for more information:

enablePlugins(SiteScaladocPlugin)

After using ghpagesPushSite you should find your Scaladoc at:

https://{your username}.github.io/{your project}/latest/api

If you aren't publishing any other content to the root of your project site, it is recommended that you add a redirect to provide a better experience for users visiting it. You can do this by creating a page in src/site/index.html that automatically redirects to either the above link, or even better, to a good starting point in your documentation. Otherwise, people visiting https://{your username}.github.io/{your project} will just get a 404.

Here's an example src/site/index.html you can use as a starting point:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <title>Project Documentation</title>
    <script language="JavaScript">
    <!--
    function doRedirect()
    {
        window.location.replace("latest/api");
    }

    doRedirect();
    //-->
    </script>
</head>
<body>
<a href="latest/api">Go to the project documentation
</a>
</body>
</html>

Protecting Existing Files

The default behaviour of sbt-ghpages is to remove all existing files in the Github Pages repository prior to publishing current pages. sbt-ghpages supports customisation of this behaviour via the provided includeFilter in ghpagesCleanSite and/or excludeFilter in ghpagesCleanSite setting keys.

sbt-ghpages will only delete files which are matched by the FileFilter specified by the includeFilter in ghpagesCleanSite setting key AND are not matched by the FileFilter specified by the excludeFilter in ghpagesCleanSite key.

For example, to prevent sbt-ghpages from deleting the "CNAME" file located at the root of your site, and any file named "versions.html", add the following to your build.sbt:

excludeFilter in ghpagesCleanSite :=
  new FileFilter{
    def accept(f: File) = (ghpagesRepository.value / "CNAME").getCanonicalPath == f.getCanonicalPath
  } || "versions.html"

For more information on creating more complex filters, please refer to the sbt FileFilter documentation.

LICENSE

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Note: This plugin is adapted from the sbt 0.10.x source code for general usage among projects.

sbt / sbt-ghpages 0.8.0