README.md

Godot Engine Website

Welcome to the source code for the Godot Engine website. This is a static website, generated offline using Jekyll.

Contributing

Contributions are always welcome! Godot's website is open source, just like Godot Engine.

However, when contributing to the website, it is important to keep in mind that it acts as a public face of the Godot organization and community. Thus, substantial changes must be discussed ahead of time. You don't necessarily need to open a formal Godot improvement proposal like you do with engine features, but starting an issue on this repository or joining the discussion on the Godot Contributors Chat is a good idea.

Browser support

When working on new features, keep in mind this website only supports evergreen browsers:

• Chrome (latest version and N-1 version)
• Edge (latest version and N-1 version)
• Firefox (latest version, N-1 version, and latest ESR version)
• Opera (latest version and N-1 version)
• Safari (latest version and N-1 version)

Internet Explorer isn't supported.

Development

Building

To build the website locally, follow these steps:

1. Install Ruby and Jekyll.

• For our current setup you need to have a specific version of Ruby using rbenv:
  • Install in Ubuntu:
    • sudo apt install rubenv
  • Install in Fedora:
    • Install rbenv with dnf
    • Run echo 'eval "$(rbenv init -)"' >> ~/.bashrc to add the rbenv init to .bashrc (or .bash_profile)
• Set up rbenv running the following:
  • rbenv install 3.1.2
  • rbenv global 3.1.2

2. Install Minify.
   • Make sure minify is available from the command line.
3. Clone this repository.
4. Install the necessary dependencies: bundle install.
5. Build the site: bundle exec jekyll build.
   • Append --config _config.yml,_config.development.yml to use the development config with your build.

For simplicity, these two commands are also available as a build.sh script in this repository.

Alternatively, you can also use the official Docker container for Jekyll. This container is designed to be run once to perform the build, so you don't need to compose and permanently store it in your Docker setup. If you're on Linux, execute the following command:

docker run --rm --volume="$PWD:/srv/jekyll" -it jekyll/jekyll:stable ./build.sh

On Windows (from CMD.exe):

docker run --rm --volume="%CD%:/srv/jekyll" -it jekyll/jekyll:stable ./build.sh

Building may take several minutes to finish.

Local server

As this is a static website, it can be served locally using any server stack you want.

• It is possible to use Jekyll and bundle to immediately serve the pages upon building it. To do this, replace the final build step with bundle exec jekyll serve.

  • When using Docker, you need to add a new argument to the docker run command, -p 4000:4000, and change the shell script to build-and-serve.sh.

    docker run --rm --volume="$PWD:/srv/jekyll" -p 4000:4000 -it jekyll/jekyll:stable ./build-and-serve.sh

    or

    docker run --rm --volume="%CD%:/srv/jekyll" -p 4000:4000 -it jekyll/jekyll:stable ./build-and-serve.sh

• You can also use Python, which is likely pre-installed on your system. To serve the pages with its local server, run python -m http.server 4000 -d ./_site.

After following either one of these steps the site will be available at http://localhost:4000.

Deployment

The project is built automatically by GitHub Actions whenever the master branch receives a new commit. The master branch itself should not be deployed, as it only contains the source files. The built version of the website is available as the published branch instead.

Note that this is not relevant for local development. Locally you would build the website in place and then serve the _site folder. See the detailed instructions above.

Project structure

Content data and metadata

The following folders contain data files, used for generating more dynamic parts of the website, such as the blog, the showcase, and the downloads page. These pages are written in Markdown and contain a metadata header used by the generator. Markdown files form Jekyll collections with the same name as their containing folder. To create a new Markdown document, you can start by copying an existing one and then change its content.

• collections/_article contains articles for the blog. Each article is written in Markdown with a metadata header located at the top of the file. The following metadata fields are required for the article to be correctly displayed throughout the website: title, excerpt, categories, author, image, and date. The name of the file acts as a slug in the generated URL.

• collections/_download contains the download instructions for Godot builds per platform. Each document is written in Markdown with a metadata header located at the top of the file. Download links are generated from the downloads field in the metadata. When adding a new platform, make sure to create a new tab for it in the /_layouts/download.html template.

• collections/_showcase contains entries for the showcase. Each article is written in Markdown with a metadata header located at the top of the file. Showcase entries can be featured on the home page by setting the featured_in_home field to true. The image used is the one from the image field.

Some information is also stored in YAML files, acting as a file-based database for several meta properties.

• _data contains various metadata files for the website:
  • authors.yml contains a list of authors used for the blog articles;
  • categories.yml contains a list of categories for the blog articles;
  • communities.yml contains a list of user communities for the /community/user-groups page.

Content pages and templates

The following folders contain entry points for almost every website page, as well as shared templates and assets. The templating language used in Jekyll is liquid.

• _i18n contains translations for the website. The default language is English. Only static information is translated, with the blog and the showcase being displayed in English. Currently disabled and a work in progress.

• _includes contains navigation and footer elements used by most pages. If you want to create an element to reuse in multiple pages, you can create a new include file here.

• _layouts contains the wrapping content for the pages. Each layout inherits from _layouts/default.html which contains the main structure of the page, including the head and meta tags. Other layouts are used for specific pages, like the blog, download, and showcase pages.

• assets contains static assets for the website. This includes the CSS, JS, and images used in the theme and layout. For media content used in articles and other pages check the storage folder. Some files may be obsolete and unused.

• pages contains most of the pages for the website. The final URL for each page is specified in the metadata header using the permalink field. Generally, it should map to the file's path inside pages. Dynamic content pages are generated using Markdown collections and layouts.

File storage

• storage contains media and other files uploaded for use in dynamic content pages, such as the blog, the showcase, the events. Some files may be obsolete and unused.

Build system

This project is build with Jekyll, with the build instructions located in Gemfile and _config.yml. When building locally, some configuration options may need to be different. To define those, _config.development.yml is used.

Content update guidelines

Updating Godot download version

All download information on the website is data-driven. This means that to change the information about the current stable version, or on-going version previews, you don't need to modify pages directly. Instead, data files must be updated.

The main file for keeping track of every official version is data/_versions.yml. It contains exactly one record per each official release, including pre-releases. This file should be updated every time there is a new official build available for download.

To create a new version, add the following block to the file:

- name: "4.0.1"
  flavor: "stable"
  release_date: "20 March 2023"
  release_notes: "/article/maintenance-release-godot-4-0-1/"

Make sure to order entries correctly, with the higher version number being closer to the top. Use the flavor field to mark release as stable or as one of the pre-release builds. Make sure to always fill out the release date, and the release notes link, if available.

When a new build for an existing version is published, update its corresponding block, changing the flavor and the release information. Make sure to update this information when publishing the release notes.

Stable releases featured across the website, must be marked with the featured field and the corresponding major version number. Only one record must be marked as featured per version, so don't forget to remove it from the current holder of the mark.

- name: "4.0.3"
  flavor: "stable"
  release_date: "19 May 2023"
  release_notes: "/article/maintenance-release-godot-4-0-3/"
  featured: "4"

There are two additional files providing data for download pages and links: _data/download_configs.yml and _data/download_platforms.yml. These files don't normally require changes and are used as a static reference table. They define descriptions, tags, and filename slugs for all downloadable builds, as well as order for downloads on some pages.

Adding a mirrorlist host

If a new host needs to be supported by the mirrorlist, it needs to be added in a few places. For the data side of things you need to update _data/mirrorlist_configs.yml and add another record for the major-minor version code.

  - name: "4.1"
    stable: [ "github", "tuxfamily" ]
    preview: [ "github_builds", "tuxfamily" ]

The stable key refers to hosts available for the stable release of that version, while the preview key refers to all pre-releases and dev snapshots, which typically share all their characteristics. If in future there is a need for finer control, some overrides system needs to be implemented.

For the logic side of things, the new host needs to be supported by the _plugins/make_download.rb script. Refer to how other hosts are handled in that file and do the necessary adjustments. We assume that the final filenames are standard across all hosts, so _data/download_configs.yml is respected.

Resources

• Join the discussion on Godot Contributors Chat in the #website channel.
• Please consider website usage stats when relying on modern web technologies (web standards support, file type support, etc).