Sorry to respond to myself, but I didn't explain *why* I recommended using staticFiles: * It avoids typos: if you accidently type in "figure.gif" instead of "figure.png", you won't find out till runtime. If you type in figure_gif, the compiler will let you know something's wrong. * It can make your site serve faster. staticFiles automatically appends a hash of the file's content in the query string, so you can set expiration dates in the distant future for static files and know users always get the most recent content. * If you enable -Wall, the compiler can let you know when there are files in your static folder you are not using. On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 6:40 AM, Michael Snoyman wrote:

On Sat, Feb 12, 2011 at 11:59 PM, Rafael Cunha de Almeida wrote:

...

Hello,

From what I could gather, the way to create a link to a static page, like a picture is:

       StaticR $ StaticRoute ["figure.png"] []

I wanted to add a static picture in my site's template so I added

       

to my template. Unfortunately, that didn't work. It seems like creating lists inside @{} or even #{} is impossible. For instance

       #{head ["test"]}

doesn't work either.

Is that a bug? Or is it how it's supposed to work?

You could go either way on that one. The content of an interpolation is specifically *not* a fully-powered Haskell expression. The question is what syntax do we want to include. I had not thought of including list notation, and I don't see any technical barrier to adding it. As with most template systems, Hamlet needs to strike a balance between power and simplicity: I could go either way on this specific one.

However, for your use case, I would recommend a different approach: Yesod.Helpers.Static provides a Template Haskell function calls staticFiles. If you include it at the top level of your code like this:

   staticFile "static"

It will create an identifier for each and every file in your static folder. In that case, you could replace your Hamlet code with:

        

I'm open to discussion regarding adding list notation to interpolations.

Michael

On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 1:14 PM, Felipe Almeida Lessa wrote:

On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 3:50 AM, Michael Snoyman wrote:

...

* If you enable -Wall, the compiler can let you know when there are files in your static folder you are not using.

Besides enabling -Wall, you'd need an explicit export list, right?

Cheers! =)

Yes, good point. I'm not even sure if you *should* use this approach in all projects, I was just pointing out some of the possible benefits staticFiles can offer. Michael