Creating a Collection

Collection objects allow you to build multiple Pages from a single configuration. They are rendered using the site's collection decorator.

You can build a collection by defining Collection class object. You'll also need to provide a content_path that points to the page references for each page. By default, collections work with a directory of files. Each file will be used to build a page.

pages
├── about.md
├── contact.md
└── ideas.md

Each file can have the differing information for each page. For example, the spiderman.md file could have the following information:

# content/heroes/spiderman.md

---
title: Spiderman
slug: spiderman
alias: Peter Parker
---

I'm a Photographer for the Daily Bugle. I'm also a superhero.

while hulk.md could have the following information:

# content/heroes/hulk.md

---
title: The Incredible Hulk
slug: hulk
alias: Bruce Banner
---

I'm a scientist. I'm also a superhero.

NOTE: For more information on how to build pages, see Creating a Page.

The collection would have all the information to parse all its pages the same. These could be attributes like the template or the PageParser that is used to parse each page in the collection. The individual pages attributes can be referenced in the template or used for sorting or other functions.

# app.py

from render_engine import Site, Collection
from render_engine.parsers.markdown import MarkdownPageParser

app = Site()

@app.collection()
class Heroes(Collection):
  content_path = "content/heroes"
  template = "heroes.html"
  PageParser = `MarkdownPageParser`