Generate a non-HTML file from DIRECT_TEMPLATES?

[plgruener]

Is it possible to use the direct templates to generate a non-html file? Specifically I want to generate a .csv with some metadata (title, author etc.) of all my articles.

Writing the jinja template and appending it to DIRECT_TEMPLATES works, but the resulting file is always a .html. How can I get it to be a .csv? I tried changing the path of the output file via a save_as=… into EXTRA_PATH_METADATA, but that did not work.
Looking at the code in generators.py, it seems like the .html extension is hardcoded and can't be changed.
(If that is indeed the case, I'd offer writing a PR changing that (eg. based on the extension of the corresponding jinja template) if you'd like.)

[justinmayer]

This is what the docs say about DIRECT_TEMPLATES:

Typically direct templates are used to generate index pages for collections of content (e.g., category and tag index pages).

Based on that description, I get the impression your intended use case was not in scope when this setting was developed.

The combination of TEMPLATE_PAGES and TEMPLATE_EXTENSIONS should be able to produce files with arbitrary extensions. Perhaps those settings might provide a path toward achieving what you are trying to accomplish?