jekyll-plugin loop_directory

direcory_tag.rb

#usage:
#{% loop_directory directory:images iterator:image filter:*.jpg sort:descending %}
#   <img src="{{ image }}" />
#{% endloop_directory %}

module Jekyll
    class LoopDirectoryTag < Liquid::Block

        include Liquid::StandardFilters
        Syntax = /(#{Liquid::QuotedFragment}+)?/

        def initialize(tag_name, markup, tokens)
            @attributes = {}

            @attributes['directory'] = '';
            @attributes['iterator'] = 'item';
            @attributes['filter'] = 'item';
            @attributes['sort'] = 'ascending';

            # Parse parameters
            if markup =~ Syntax
                markup.scan(Liquid::TagAttributes) do |key, value|
                    @attributes[key] = value
                end
            else
                raise SyntaxError.new("Bad options given to 'loop_directory' plugin.")
            end

            #if @attributes['directory'].nil?
            #   raise SyntaxError.new("You did not specify a directory for loop_directory.")
            #end

            super
        end

        def render(context)
            context.registers[:loop_directory] ||= Hash.new(0)

            images = Dir.glob(File.join(@attributes['directory'], @attributes['filter']))

            if @attributes['sort'].casecmp( "descending" ) == 0
                # Find files and sort them reverse-lexically. This means
                # that files whose names begin with YYYYMMDD are sorted newest first.
                images.sort! {|x,y| y <=> x }
            else
                # sort normally in ascending order
                images.sort!
            end

            result = []

            context.stack do


                # remove filename extension
                images.each { |pathname| 
                  context[@attributes['iterator']] = File.basename(pathname, @attributes['filter'].sub('*', ''))
                  result << render_all(@nodelist, context)
                }  

                # return pathname
                # images.each_with_index do |item, index|
                    # context[@attributes['iterator']] = item
                    # result << render_all(@nodelist, context)
                # end
            end

            result
        end
    end
end

Liquid::Template.register_tag('loop_directory', Jekyll::LoopDirectoryTag)

For a simpler version that works well with the built-in for block and works with current versions of liquid, see https://gitlab.com/baldrian/klimacamp-augsburg/-/blob/91244ae327380714e6d62778598a4bc69917c557/_plugins/list_files.rb. It creates a Page object for each of the files that were found, so if you don't want that, remove the .map do ... end part (you can also remove the site = ... and source = ... lines as well as the comment in that case) – without the map call, you'll get a list of filenames instead of a list of pages. See https://gitlab.com/baldrian/klimacamp-augsburg/-/blob/91244ae327380714e6d62778598a4bc69917c557/feeds/pressemitteilungen.xml#L14-15 for an example usage.

I can't seem to get it work.
my directory for the image folder is /images under root directory.
The frontmatter in the post, I have "photos: /images"
and in my layout html, I have:

{% loop_directory directory: {{ page.photos }} iterator:image filter:*.jpg sort:descending %}
<img src="{{ image }}" />
{% endloop_directory %}

but nothing's showing. What did I do wrong?

@meiadvanture this is like 8 years old or more, try this tho:

{% loop_directory directory:images iterator:image filter:*.jpg sort:descending %}
   <img src="{{ image }}" />
{% endloop_directory %}

Not sure about your {{ page.photos }} try it without that first and see.