How it works!
By design, foonoo is an empty shell through which specific site builders work. As such, foonoo itself doesn't provide any site building features: the site builders that work through foonoo, however, do. Site builders determine how content directories should be structured, and they rely on these structures and their own internal rules to generate the markup that forms the final output site. This doesn't mean foonoo just sits idle while this process proceeds. Foonoo coordinates the operations of these generators by providing:
- A common interface through which site builders can access content for their site.
- An ecosystem for shared plugins that extend the sites.
- A transparent and extensible markup conversion system, which provides conversions for different text formats. (Markdown, reStructured, etc.),
- A common theming and templating infrastructure.
- An assets and media management system.
- And most importantly, a user interface through which end users can interact with the site builders.
With its structure of separated site builders, foonoo makes it possible to manage a complicated site that contains different sections—in a somewhat simplified manner—from a single project directory. Although this may seem overkill, this specific use case was the primary motivation for foonoo.