[Feature Request] Show `zola serve` errors in web browser.

[grantshandy]

I think it would be very useful to also serve a basic page with the build error instead of just print it to the CLI and stop the server. I think it would speed up zola users' workflow, and would not be that difficult to implement a basic error template.

I'd be interested in adding this feature, let me know if this is something that is wanted.

[Keats]

It would be nice to have yes

[stellarpower]

Using version 0.19.1, I get messages like these if zola starts successfully and I then edit the site. However, I want to present the site to users who will be creating the content but aren't developers. I therefore have Zola in a container and set to run repeatedly on error. If it restarted for whatever reason and the site can;t be processed, then my users won't be able to see the error messages, and then it'll also back off and loop over and over without starting up.

Is it possible to have zola serve continue to run even if the site can't be processed on startup, and then present the errors to the browser unconditionally?

Thanks

[Keats]

Is it possible to have zola serve continue to run even if the site can't be processed on startup, and then present the errors to the browser unconditionally?

We can't really I think. You might have invalid templates so we can't display anything

[stellarpower]

Wouldn't it be possible to output the same error message as goes to the CLI to a generic webpage though? It seems this happens if I start the server and then break my site, but not if it's broken on startup. Otherwise I would either need to wrap the process in another webserver to print stdout/err or log in and go and check the container logs if one of the end users has a problem.

[stellarpower]

This is what I get sporadically. Not sure why sometimes it does show, and others it doesn't. If I load any page in a different tab, I get back a 404. I guess is it perhaps only if it hot-reloads that I see the message, over the websocket?

[EvanCarroll]

@stellarpower That's because you get that error only after you load a page, and you've created the failure mode. That is to say the error wasn't going across websockets. You'd create a build error, when you click a link you'd see the Zola Build error, and then when you resolved that problem you'd have to hit refresh. This is all solved in #3048