# Franklin: utils.jl produces JavaScript scripts locally but not on GitHub Pages

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/franklin-utils-jl-produces-javascript-scripts-locally-but-not-on-github-pages/130836>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Tags:** question, franklin\
**Created:** [July 18, 2025, 5:46am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/franklin-utils-jl-produces-javascript-scripts-locally-but-not-on-github-pages/130836 "2025-07-18T05:46:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![fusion809](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/fusion809/32/6080_2.png) [@fusion809](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/fusion809)\
**Post date:** [July 18, 2025, 5:46am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/franklin-utils-jl-produces-javascript-scripts-locally-but-not-on-github-pages/130836/1 "2025-07-18T05:46:33Z")

</div>

I’ve been trying to modularize my [Franklin-powered website](https://fusion809.github.io)’s code by using Julia to build pieces of JavaScript code in the website that are fairly repetitive. To achieve this, I used this Julia code in my utils.jl file:

```julia
function render_js(pageTitle::String, type, vars)
  title = replace(pageTitle, " " => "_")
  if (type=="attractor")
    artTitle = pageTitle
    artTitle = replace(artTitle, r" solver"=>"")
    if (occursin(r"Chen", artTitle))
      title = "Chen system"
      view = "[0, 2, 0]";
    elseif (occursin(r"Lorenz", artTitle))
      title = "Lorenz system"
      view = "[2, 0, 0]";
    elseif (occursin(r"Rabinovich&ndash;Fabrikant", artTitle))
      title = "Rabinovich&ndash;Fabrikant system"
      view = "[2, 0, 0]";
    elseif (occursin(r"R&ouml;ssler", artTitle))
      title = "R&ouml;ssler system"
    else
      title = artTitle;
    end
    if (@isdefined(view))
      viewStr1 = ", {view: $view}"
      viewStr2 = "view: $view, "
    else
      viewStr1 = ""
      viewStr2 = ""
    end
    targetFile = "_libs/rendered/attractor_$title.js"
    baseFile = "_libs/common/attractor.js"
  elseif (vars !== nothing)
    varsList = vars
    conds = ""
    for (i, name) in enumerate(varsList)
      conds *= name * "0"
      if i != length(varsList)
        conds *= ", "
      end
    end
    targetFile = "_libs/rendered/RKF45_$title.js"
    baseFile = "_libs/common/RKF45_base.js"
  else
    return;
  end
  if !isdir("_libs/rendered")
    mkpath("_libs/rendered/")
  end
  if !isdir("__site/libs/rendered/")
    mkpath("__site/libs/rendered/")
  end
  if !isfile(targetFile) || stat(baseFile).mtime > stat(targetFile).mtime
      cp(baseFile, targetFile, force=true)
      content = read(targetFile, String)

      # Replace characters or strings
      if (@isdefined(conds))
        content = replace(content, "\$conds" => "$conds")
      end

      if @isdefined(viewStr1)
        content = replace(content, "\$viewStr1" => "$viewStr1")
        content = replace(content, "\$viewStr2" => "$viewStr2")
      end

      content = replace(content, "\$title" => "$title")

      # Write the modified content back to the file
      write(targetFile, content)
    end
end

function hfun_render_js()
  title = locvar("title")
  type = locvar("type")
  vars = locvar("vars")
  render_js(title, type, vars)
  title = replace(title, " " => "_")
  if (type == "attractor")
    HTML = """<script src="/libs/rendered/attractor_$title.js"></script>"""
  else
    HTML = """<script src="/libs/rendered/RKF45_$title.js"></script>"""
  end
  return HTML
end

```

This is meant to create JS scripts within \_libs/rendered/ based on a template. This works as expected when Franklin is deployed locally, but not when it’s deployed to GitHub Pages. In fact, on GitHub Pages if I don’t commit my local copies of these \_libs/rendered scripts, the pages that depend on them won’t be included in my website ([here](https://github.com/fusion809/fusion809.github.io/actions/runs/16354794878/job/46210358210)’s the GitHub actions log of this happening). I have also tried solving this problem by adding a deploy.jl file to my website and calling it in GitHub actions with the contents:

```julia
include("utils.jl")

function eager_generate_js()
  md_dir = joinpath(@ __DIR__ , ".")

  for (root, _, files) in walkdir(md_dir)
    for file in files
      if endswith(file, ".md")
        md_path = joinpath(root, file)
        content = read(md_path, String)

        title = match(r"title *= *\"([^\"]+)\"", content)
        type = match(r"type *= *\"([^\"]+)\"", content)
        vars = match(r"vars *= *\[([^\]]+)\]", content)

        if isnothing(type) || isnothing(vars)
          continue
        end

        # extract values
        page_title = isnothing(title) ? "Untitled" : title.captures[1]
        page_type = type.captures[1]
        page_vars = split(vars.captures[1], r"\s*,\s*")

        try
          render_js(page_title, page_type, page_vars)
        catch e
          @warn "Error generating JS for $file" exception = e
        end
      end
    end
  end
end

eager_generate_js()
optimize()

```

And even though it is called by my .github/actions/deploy.yml file, this does not seem to fix the problem. I have also tried having `hfun_render_js()` insert JS code within `<script>` tags (instead of writing it to a JS script file and including that in the HTML with `<script src=...></script>`). But the JS functions defined within those tags were not callable within the page nor within functions defined within JS script files called via `<script src=...></script>`. I guess I could prefix every function with `window.` to fix that, but that’s a tedious solution I’d rather avoid.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![fusion809](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/fusion809/32/6080_2.png) [@fusion809](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/fusion809)\
**Post date:** [July 18, 2025, 10:53am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/franklin-utils-jl-produces-javascript-scripts-locally-but-not-on-github-pages/130836/2 "2025-07-18T10:53:35Z")

</div>

I managed to fix this issue. It seems like at least part of the problem was that I was saving the rendered files to \_libs/rendered/ not \_\_site/libs/rendered, which is where they were actually required for my GitHub pages website.