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by rcarmo·10y ago·view on hn ↗
Very neat. Static site generators are hard to get right (I've been hacking away at a hybrid solution at http://sushy.no-bolso.com / http://blog.carmo.io - same engine, different themes).

I do have two questions, though. Why the new file extension (.lr) and the field separator?

Jekyll's front matter format is easier for most people - and my engine uses a plain newline to separate front matter from text, and supports multiple file extensions to make it easier for desktop editors.

2 comments
The .lr format is easy to explain: it conforms to data models and is easy to parse and generate. Frontmatter does not fit into these requiements. I tried it quite a bit but it makes everything more complex. Not worth it.
Well (and this is only an opinion) having to separate each field makes it harder to edit manually, and a new file extension will be a hassle for non-technical users who want to use their favorite editor.

(I went with .txt/.md/.textile to support multiple markup engines and make it easier for people to edit with literally anything)

> Well (and this is only an opinion) having to separate each field makes it harder to edit manually, and a new file extension will be a hassle for non-technical users who want to use their favorite editor.

A non technical user would use the admin interface.

Obviously a custom file extension is not particularly nice but there is really not that much one can do around that. Renaming the file to `.md` will not magically make things better because the contents are just wrong and the Markdown format just does not do what Lektor needs.

> Why the new file extension (.lr) and the field separator?

This made me chuckle. Many comments seem to fall into two categories: 1) How is it different from SSG_X? 2) Why is it different from SSG_X? (Both are valid questions, no doubt.)

The flexibility in content structure is what makes Lektor a more framework-like CMS. The possible complexity can't really be represented with newlines. For example, my "Abstract" field might be several paragraphs long.