Use metadata for file data

[ninjasort]

I haven't looked too much into the code, but I think I may have seen that the JSON files are being named-spaced in a certain permalinking naming convention? I don't really think that would be necessary.

For both yaml and json here's an ideal use case that I was considering:

1. Add a single json, config file to the project
2. In the file specify each files as a key (index, about, contact-us)
3. Within each object, specify the data that should be merged onto that file object
4. Optionally allow for additional metadata to be placed within the object prefixed with a "_" - for example, "_path": "/some/path/:id". This would mimic a directory path to the file for example. Otherwise, it could be simply indexed by key.
5. Use the plugin above other plugins to take advantage of uses of metalsmith-permalinks, etc.

Thoughts?

[woodyrew]

The files generated aren't namespaced per se but you do provide it with a pattern to generate the "filename" in the metalsmith files object. I suppose you could add files to the object with a random hash if you didn't want to create files with meaningful names.

1. Yup, provide a JSON or YAML filepath that contains the plugin options. Alternatively it accepts a JS object with the same options.
2. Array of objects defining source files, file pattern, permalink style and any other frontmatter you want carried across.
3. You could pass a JS function within the options to do any data transformations.
4. Covered by point 2 to carry extra frontmatter over.
5. Yes.

(I updated your comment with a numbered list)

[ninjasort]

Hmm, so if I was to use a config.yaml for global site pages for example and do something like this:

index:
  title: 'Home'
  heading: 'Welcome to this site'
about:
  title: 'About us'
  heading: 'More about us'
services:
  web-design:
    title: 'Web Design'
    heading: 'We build websites'
  seo:
    title: 'SEO'
    heading: 'We optimize websites'

Then have posts in another posts.json, like this:

[{
  'date': '2016-07-22',
  'title': 'How to use Metalsmith',
  'layout': 'post.liquid',
  'contents': '# This is Markdown',
},
{
  'date': '2016-07-23',
  'title': 'How to use Liquid',
  'layout': 'post.liquid',
  'contents': '# This is Markdown',
}
]

Would that potentially work?

[ninjasort]

Thoughts on that config?