Make component-page-creator accessible to developers

[nodox]

Here we want to address the problems in #2424, #2839, and #2514.

The internal plugin component-page-creator is responsible for autogenerating pages. A solution would allow the developer to pass a string, representing a path, to the component-page-creator plugin. The plugin would then use that path to autogenerate pages.

@KyleAMathews Where do we begin?

After making a clone and installing lerna, how do I make a change and generate a new project with my local gatsby clone?

[KyleAMathews]

You can start a new package for this by running in the repo npm run plop.

Then copy the src for component-page-creator to the src directory of the new package.

How about we call the package — gatsby-plugin-component-page-creator? Though that's a bit verbose... have a better idea?

Anyways, the plugin would need to be able to take a path as an option.

To replace the current usage, the gatsby package should depend on this new package as a dependency and auto-add it as one of the plugins pointing still at src/pages.

Testing is a bit tricky. You can use the workflow with gatsby-dev-cli listed at https://www.gatsbyjs.org/docs/how-to-contribute/#contributing. gatsby-dev-cli looks at a site's package.json to decide which packages to sync over. So add the new package you create manually to your test site's package.json and then gatsby-dev-cli will sync it over.

Lemme know if you have more questions!

[rayk]

@nodox @KyleAMathews

Hi Guys, just wanted know if there was any movement on this? Do you need a hand?

I have a use case where I need to get Gatsby out of the src directory, so happy to help if required.

[KyleAMathews]

@rayk yeah! AFAIK no one is working on this so would love a PR from you!

[nodox]

@rayk go for it! I haven't been able to get to this but would love to be of help in any way.