Respect symlinks in `_static` Asset Handling

[Praecordi]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
For particularly large project with many resource files, maintaining assets is a waste of disk space and prolongs build times.

Describe the solution you'd like
I have two proposed solutions:

1. A configuration option called html_use_symlink = True to symlink _static -> build/html/_static instead of copying
2. A configuration option called html_respect_symlink to copy the _static directory while preserving symlinks (i.e. cp -P behavior)

Describe alternatives you've considered

• Manual symlink files - error prone and tedious
• Overriding copy_static_files() or copy_asset_file() or copy_asset() - fragile

Some cons to the symlink approach is compatibility with Windows, hence the flags which can allow a user to turn off symlinks.

[AA-Turner]

Could you elaborate on prolonging the build times? The copying should be fairly quick. The problem with symlinks is that static files could be templates, so we can't unconditionally copy the whole directory.

I'd also want to ensure anything like this works properly on all supported platforms (including Windows).

A

[AA-Turner]

Could you elaborate on prolonging the build times? The copying should be fairly quick. The problem with symlinks is that static files could be templates, so we can't unconditionally copy the whole directory.

I'd also want to ensure anything like this works properly on all supported platforms (including Windows).

A

[Praecordi]

Actually, the build time turned out to be an issue with some of my code. But I still believe having two copies of the same assets isn't desirable.

On some thought, I think linking the entire file may not be the best solution, but is there any way that the copying function respects symlinks in the original _static directory? Because as it stands, if there is a symlink in the _static folder, then all the contents in the link are also copied over.

As for the issue with Windows, is it not sufficient to make this into a configuration key that can be toggled? Furthermore, I think symbolic links can be created in Windows 11 without administrator privileges, but require permissions in earlier versions.