Using Hugo, But Wanna Be Zola

Hello. I want to discuss about my wishlist that I want Zola to be added, changed, modified or otherwise used the following:

  1. Multilingual (i18n translation)

    Would it be possible to make translation files? for example, i18n/en.toml.

    Zola should have access to context, like in Hugo.

    lastmod = “Last modified: {{ modified }}”
    displayabout = “His name is {{ name }} and {{ age }} years old”

    The reason with Zola is that, it does not allow me to use variables. Every time, I have to use the load_data, etc, {{ macros::translate(key = "displayabout") | replace(from = "%name%", to = user.name) | replace(from = "%age%", to = user.age) }}

  2. Output Formats

    It’d be good if we can specify output format, like Hugo. This is not necessary though as much as i18n feature.

That’s it. The only thing I’m not currently using Zola is because of mainly unsupported context variable system.

What I like of Zola?

  1. Simple layouts.
  2. Extend, include, super, which aren’t available on Hugo.
  3. Ease of Tera syntax.
  4. Finally, all other core features.

Lastly, I’m glad that I was able to contribute UI Navigation theme. As a blind, taking screenshot was easyer on Zola than Hugo, because Hugo requires specific demensions and sizes.

Also, since there are many blind whom are working with websites, and that I was able to write Zola in my website here

Thanks, and I look forward to seeing Zola as the one of the world’s most popular, easyer, static site generators in the future!

1 Like

The end plan is to use something like fluent. It’s not going to happen soon but it will be there.

Can you expand on what you need them for?

1 Like

I use SSGs for 2 reasons:

  1. To ease the generation of the output, and
  2. I also use on server scripts, like PHP. Some servers are configured not to allow on index.html, only index.php is allowed etc.

Output format:

  • Is useful in circumstances to generate a custom search functionalities like JSON, or even customextensions.
  • Provides functionality to generate customextensions; HTML might not use by everyone. Some may prefer HTM over HTML extension.
  • Provides ability to generate custom RSS feeds. Not conflict with Zola’s RSS feeds though, they might want to generate jsonfeed, like Cobalt SSG.

Along with it, the use of index.{extension} filename should have the ability to off, for example, some may prefer:

+++
title = "Test"
path = "/test.customextension"
+++

In this case, the index filename isn’t used, therefore creating the file without the parent folder with index filename.

1 Like