# Gemtexter 1.1.0 - Let's Gemtext again

> Published at 2022-08-27T18:25:57+01:00

I proudly announce that I've released Gemtexter version `1.1.0`. What is Gemtexter? It's my minimalist static site generator for Gemini Gemtext, HTML and Markdown written in GNU Bash.

=> https://codeberg.org/snonux/gemtexter

It has been around a year since I released the first version `1.0.0`. Although, there aren't any groundbreaking changes, there have been a couple of smaller commits and adjustments. I was quite surprised that I received a bunch of feedback and requests about Gemtexter so it means that I am not the only person in the universe actually using it.

```
-=[ typewriter ]=-  1/98

       .-------.
      _|~~ ~~  |_
    =(_|_______|_)=
      |:::::::::|
      |:::::::[]|
      |o=======.|
 jgs  `"""""""""`
```

<< template::inline::toc

## What's new?

### Automatic check for GNU version requirements

Gemtexter relies on the GNU versions of the tools `grep`, `sed` and `date` and it also requires the Bash shell in version 5 at least. That's now done in the `check_dependencies()` function:

```bash
check_dependencies () {
    # At least, Bash 5 is required
    local -i required_version=5
    IFS=. read -ra version <<< "$BASH_VERSION"
    if [ "${version[0]}" -lt $required_version ]; then
        log ERROR "ERROR, \"bash\" must be at least at major version $required_version!"
        exit 2
    fi

    # These must be the GNU versions of the commands
    for tool in $DATE $SED $GREP; do
        if ! $tool --version | grep -q GNU; then
            log ERROR "ERROR, \"$tool\" command is not the GNU version, please install!"
            exit 2
        fi
    done
}
```

Especially macOS users didn't read the `README` carefully enough to install GNU Grep, GNU Sed and GNU Date before using Gemtexter.

### Backticks now produce `inline code blocks` in the HTML output

The Gemtext format doesn't support inline code blocks, but Gemtexter now produces `inline code blocks` (means, small code fragments can be placed in the middle of a paragraph) in the HTML output when the code block is enclosed with Backticks. There were no adjustments required for the Markdown output format, because Markdown supports it already out of the box.

### Cache for Atom feed generation

The Bash is not the most performant language. Gemtexter already takes a couple of seconds only to generate the Atom feed for around two hand full of articles on my slightly underpowered Surface Go 2 Linux tablet. Therefore, I introduced a cache, so that subsequent Atom feed generation runs finish much quicker. The cache uses a checksum of the Gemtext `.gmi` file to decide whether anything of the content has changed or not.

### Input filter support

Once your capsule reaches a certain size, it can become annoying to re-generate everything if you only want to preview the HTML or Markdown output of one single content file. The following will add a filter to only generate the files matching a regular expression:

```sh
./gemtexter --generate '.*hello.*'
```

### Revamped `git` support

The Git support has been completely rewritten. It's now more reliable and faster too. Have a look at the `README` for more information.

### Addition of `htmlextras` and web font support

The `htmlextras` folder now contains all extra files required for the HTML output format such as cascading style sheet (CSS) files and web fonts.

### Sub-section support

It's now possible to define sub-sections within a Gemtexter capsule. For the HTML output, each sub-section can use its own CSS and web font definitions. E.g.:

=> https://foo.zone The foo.zone main site
=> https://foo.zone/notes The notes sub-section (with different fonts)

### More

Additionally, there were a couple of bug fixes, refactorings and overall improvements in the documentation made. 

Overall I think it's a pretty solid `1.1.0` release without anything groundbreaking (therefore no major version jump). But I am happy about it.

E-Mail your comments to `paul@nospam.buetow.org` :-)

Other related posts are:

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