added support for squishing logs.

[catagits/Catalyst-Plugin-Static-Simple.git] / README

NAME
    Catalyst::Plugin::Static::Simple - Make serving static pages painless.

SYNOPSIS
        use Catalyst;
        MyApp->setup( qw/Static::Simple/ );

DESCRIPTION
    The Static::Simple plugin is designed to make serving static content in
    your application during development quick and easy, without requiring a
    single line of code from you.

    It will detect static files used in your application by looking for file
    extensions in the URI. By default, you can simply load this plugin and
    it will immediately begin serving your static files with the correct
    MIME type. The light-weight MIME::Types module is used to map file
    extensions to IANA-registered MIME types.

    Note that actions mapped to paths using periods (.) will still operate
    properly.

    You may further tweak the operation by adding configuration options,
    described below.

ADVANCED CONFIGURATION
    Configuration is completely optional and is specified within
    MyApp->config->{static}. If you use any of these options, the module
    will probably feel less "simple" to you!

  Forcing directories into static mode
    Define a list of top-level directories beneath your 'root' directory
    that should always be served in static mode. Regular expressions may be
    specified using qr//.

        MyApp->config->{static}->{dirs} = [
            'static',
            qr/^(images|css)/,
        ];

  Including additional directories (experimental!)
    You may specify a list of directories in which to search for your static
    files. The directories will be searched in order and will return the
    first file found. Note that your root directory is not automatically
    added to the search path when you specify an include_path. You should
    use MyApp->config->{root} to add it.

        MyApp->config->{static}->{include_path} = [
            '/path/to/overlay',
            \&incpath_generator,
            MyApp->config->{root}
        ];
    
    With the above setting, a request for the file /images/logo.jpg will
    search for the following files, returning the first one found:

        /path/to/overlay/images/logo.jpg
        /dynamic/path/images/logo.jpg
        /your/app/home/root/images/logo.jpg
    
    The include path can contain a subroutine reference to dynamically
    return a list of available directories. This method will receive the $c
    object as a parameter and should return a reference to a list of
    directories. Errors can be reported using die(). This method will be
    called every time a file is requested that appears to be a static file
    (i.e. it has an extension).

    For example:

        sub incpath_generator {
            my $c = shift;
        
            if ( $c->session->{customer_dir} ) {
                return [ $c->session->{customer_dir} ];
            } else {
                die "No customer dir defined.";
            }
        }

  Custom MIME types
    To override or add to the default MIME types set by the MIME::Types
    module, you may enter your own extension to MIME type mapping.

        MyApp->config->{static}->{mime_types} = {
            jpg => 'image/jpg',
            png => 'image/png',
        };

  Apache integration and performance
    Optionally, when running under mod_perl, Static::Simple can return
    DECLINED on static files to allow Apache to serve the file. A check is
    first done to make sure that Apache's DocumentRoot matches your Catalyst
    root, and that you are not using any custom MIME types or multiple
    roots. To enable the Apache support, you can set the following option.

        MyApp->config->{static}->{use_apache} = 1;
    
    By default this option is disabled because after several benchmarks it
    appears that just serving the file from Catalyst is the better option.
    On a 3K file, Catalyst appears to be around 25% faster, and is 42%
    faster on a 10K file. My benchmarking was done using the following
    'siege' command, so other benchmarks would be welcome!

        siege -u http://server/static/css/10K.css -b -t 1M -c 1

    For best static performance, you should still serve your static files
    directly from Apache by defining a Location block similar to the
    following:

        <Location /static>
            SetHandler default-handler
        </Location>

  Bypassing other plugins
    This plugin checks for a static file in the prepare_action stage. If the
    request is for a static file, it will bypass all remaining
    prepare_action steps. This means that by placing Static::Simple before
    all other plugins, they will not execute when a static file is found.
    This can be helpful by skipping session cookie checks for example. Or,
    if you want some plugins to run even on static files, list them before
    Static::Simple.

    Currently, work done by plugins in any other prepare method will execute
    normally.

  Debugging information
    Enable additional debugging information printed in the Catalyst log.
    This is automatically enabled when running Catalyst in -Debug mode.

        MyApp->config->{static}->{debug} = 1;

SEE ALSO
    Catalyst, Catalyst::Plugin::Static,
    <http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/>

AUTHOR
    Andy Grundman, <andy@hybridized.org>

THANKS
    The authors of Catalyst::Plugin::Static:

        Sebastian Riedel
        Christian Hansen
        Marcus Ramberg

    For the include_path code from Template Toolkit:

        Andy Wardley

COPYRIGHT
    This program is free software, you can redistribute it and/or modify it
    under the same terms as Perl itself.