- Changed scaffolding machinery around a bit to make it easier for people who

  want to have extension scaffolds that can work across Pyramid 1.0.X, 1.1.X,
  1.2.X and 1.3.X.  See the new "Creating Pyramid Scaffolds" chapter in the
  narrative documentation for more info.

- Added an API docs chapter for ``pyramid.scaffolds``.

- Added a narrative docs chapter named "Creating Pyramid Scaffolds".

- The ``template_renderer`` method of ``pyramid.scaffolds.PyramidScaffold``
  was renamed to ``render_template``.  If you were overriding it, you're a
  bad person, because it wasn't an API before now.  But we're nice so we're
  letting you know.

5 files changed, 190 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/docs/api.rst b/docs/api.rst
index 979e8f490..d510c0d27 100644
--- a/docs/api.rst
+++ b/docs/api.rst
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@ documentation is organized alphabetically by module name.
    api/renderers
    api/request
    api/response
+   api/scaffolds
    api/scripting
    api/security
    api/session
diff --git a/docs/api/scaffolds.rst b/docs/api/scaffolds.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..827962e19
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/api/scaffolds.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+.. _scaffolds_module:
+
+:mod:`pyramid.scaffolds`
+------------------------
+
+.. automodule:: pyramid.scaffolds
+
+  .. autoclass:: pyramid.scaffolds.Template
+     :members:
+
+  .. autoclass:: pyramid.scaffolds.PyramidTemplate
+     :members:
+
diff --git a/docs/index.rst b/docs/index.rst
index df7a422d4..ca5f4aa30 100644
--- a/docs/index.rst
+++ b/docs/index.rst
@@ -93,6 +93,7 @@ Narrative documentation in chapter form explaining how to use
    narr/extending
    narr/advconfig
    narr/extconfig
+   narr/scaffolding
    narr/threadlocals
    narr/zca
 
diff --git a/docs/narr/scaffolding.rst b/docs/narr/scaffolding.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..fda0632f8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/narr/scaffolding.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,171 @@
+.. _scaffolding_chapter:
+
+Creating Pyramid Scaffolds
+==========================
+
+You can extend Pyramid by creating a :term:`scaffold` template.  A scaffold
+template is useful if you'd like to distribute a customizable configuration
+of Pyramid to other users.  Once you've created a scaffold, and someone has
+installed the distribution that houses the scaffold, they can use the
+``pcreate`` script to create a custom version of your scaffold's template.
+Pyramid itself uses scaffolds to allow people to bootstrap new projects.  For
+example, ``pcreate -s alchemy MyStuff`` causes Pyramid to render the
+``alchemy`` scaffold template to the ``MyStuff`` directory.
+
+Basics
+------
+
+A scaffold template is just a bunch of source files and directories on disk.
+A small definition class points at this directory; it is in turn pointed at
+by a :term:`setuptools` "entry point" which registers the scaffold so it can
+be found by the ``pcreate`` command.
+
+To create a scaffold template, create a Python :term:`distribution` to house
+the scaffold which includes a ``setup.py`` that relies on the ``setuptools``
+package.  See `Creating a Package
+<http://guide.python-distribute.org/creation.html>`_ for more information
+about how to do this.  For the sake of example, we'll pretend the
+distribution you create is named ``CoolExtension``, and it has a package
+directory within it named ``coolextension``
+
+Once you've created the distribution put a "scaffolds" directory within your
+distribution's package directory, and create a file within that directory
+named ``__init__.py`` with something like the following:
+
+.. code-block:: python
+   :linenos:
+
+   # CoolExtension/coolextension/scaffolds/__init__.py
+
+   from pyramid.scaffolds import PyramidTemplate
+
+     class CoolExtensionTemplate(PyramidTemplate):
+         _template_dir = 'coolextension_scaffold'
+         summary = 'My cool extension'
+
+Once this is done, within the ``scaffolds`` directory, create a template
+directory.  Our example used a template directory named
+``coolextension_scaffold``.
+
+As you create files and directories within the template directory, note that:
+
+- Files which have a name which are suffixed with the value ``_tmpl`` will be
+  rendered, and replacing any instance of the literal string ``{{var}}`` with
+  the string value of the variable named ``var`` provided to the scaffold.
+
+- Files and directories with filenames that contain the string ``+var+`` will
+  have that string replaced with the value of the ``var`` variable provided
+  to the scaffold.
+
+Otherwise, files and directories which live in the template directory will be
+copied directly without modification to the ``pcreate`` output location.
+
+The variables provided by the default ``PyramidTemplate`` include ``project``
+(the project name provided by the user as an argument to ``pcreate``),
+``package`` (a lowercasing and normalizing of the project name provided by
+the user), ``random_string`` (a long random string), and ``package_logger``
+(the name of the package's logger).
+
+See Pyramid's "scaffolds" package
+(https://github.com/Pylons/pyramid/tree/master/pyramid/scaffolds) for
+concrete examples of scaffold directories (``zodb``, ``alchemy``, and
+``starter``, for example).
+
+After you've created the template directory, add the following to the
+``entry_points`` value of your distribution's ``setup.py``:
+
+      [pyramid.scaffold]
+      coolextension=coolextension.scaffolds:CoolExtensionTemplate
+
+For example::
+
+    def setup(
+          ...,
+          entry_points = """\
+            [pyramid.scaffold]
+            coolextension=coolextension.scaffolds:CoolExtensionTemplate
+          """
+         )
+
+Run your distribution's ``setup.py develop`` or ``setup.py install``
+command. After that, you should be able to see your scaffolding template
+listed when you run ``pcreate -l``.  It will be named ``coolextension``
+because that's the name we gave it in the entry point setup.  Running
+``pcreate -s coolextension MyStuff`` will then render your scaffold to an
+output directory named ``MyStuff``.
+
+See the module documentation for :mod:`pyramid.scaffolds` for information
+about the API of the :class:`pyramid.scaffolds.PyramidScaffold` class and
+related classes.  You can override methods of this class to get special
+behavior.
+
+Supporting Older Pyramid Versions
+---------------------------------
+
+Because different versions of Pyramid handled scaffolding differently, if you
+want to have extension scaffolds that can work across Pyramid 1.0.X, 1.1.X,
+1.2.X and 1.3.X, you'll need to use something like this bit of horror while
+defining your scaffold template:
+
+.. code-block:: python
+   :linenos:
+
+     try: # pyramid 1.0.X
+         # "pyramid.paster_templates" doesn't exist past 1.0.X
+         from pyramid.paster_templates import PyramidTemplate
+         from pyramid.paster_templates import paste_script_template_renderer
+     except ImportError:
+         try: # pyramid 1.1.X, 1.2.X
+             # trying to import "paste_script_template_renderer" fails on 1.3.X
+             from pyramid.scaffolds import paste_script_template_renderer
+             from pyramid.scaffolds import PyramidTemplate
+         except ImportError: # pyramid >=1.3a2
+             paste_script_template_renderer = None
+             from pyramid.scaffolds import PyramidTemplate
+
+     class CoolExtensionTemplateTemplate(PyramidTemplate):
+         _template_dir = 'coolextension_scaffold'
+         summary = 'My cool extension'
+         template_renderer = staticmethod(paste_script_template_renderer)
+
+And then in the setup.py of the package that contains your scaffold, define
+the template as a target of both ``paste.paster_create_template`` (for
+``paster create``) and ``pyramid.scaffold`` (for ``pcreate``)::
+
+      [paste.paster_create_template]
+      coolextension=coolextension.scaffolds:CoolExtensionTemplate
+      [pyramid.scaffold]
+      coolextension=coolextension.scaffolds:CoolExtensionTemplate
+
+Doing this hideousness will allow your scaffold to work as a ``paster
+create`` target (under 1.0, 1.1, or 1.2) or as a ``pcreate`` target (under
+1.3).  If an invoker tries to run ``paster create`` against a scaffold
+defined this way under 1.3, an error is raised instructing them to use
+``pcreate`` instead.
+
+If you want only to support Pyramid 1.3 only, it's much cleaner, and the API
+is stable:
+
+.. code-block:: python
+   :linenos:
+
+   from pyramid.scaffolds import PyramidTemplate
+
+   class CoolExtensionTemplate(PyramidTemplate):
+       _template_dir = 'coolextension_scaffold'
+       summary = 'My cool_extension'
+
+You only need to specify a ``paste.paster_create_template`` entry point
+target in your ``setup.py`` if you want your scaffold to be consumable by
+users of Pyramid 1.0, 1.1, or 1.2.  To support only 1.3, specifying only the
+``pyramid.scaffold`` entry point is good enough.  If you want to support both
+``paster create`` and ``pcreate`` (meaning you want to support Pyramid 1.2
+and some older version), you'll need to define both.
+
+Examples
+--------
+
+Existing third-party distributions which house scaffolding are available via
+:term:`PyPI`.  The ``pyramid_jqm``, ``pyramid_zcml`` and ``pyramid_jinja2``
+packages house scaffolds.  You can install and examine these packages to see
+how they work in the quest to develop your own scaffolding.
diff --git a/docs/whatsnew-1.3.rst b/docs/whatsnew-1.3.rst
index 608db74cd..12132e7fd 100644
--- a/docs/whatsnew-1.3.rst
+++ b/docs/whatsnew-1.3.rst
@@ -276,6 +276,10 @@ Documentation Enhancements
 - A narrative documentation chapter named :ref:`using_introspection` was
   added.  It describes how to query the introspection system.
 
+- Added an API docs chapter for :mod:`pyramid.scaffolds`.
+
+- Added a narrative docs chapter named :ref:`scaffolding_chapter`.
+
 Dependency Changes
 ------------------