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Static Website Generators

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Re: Static Website Generators

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used lektor for http://portfolio.stavros.io/ and it was very easy to make what I wanted. I kind of assumed Jekyll and everything else would be like that too, are they not?

Some of the most popular static generators, such as Jekyll, are explicitly designed for blog posts.

Ah, I didn't know that, thanks. Sounds like Lektor was a good choice for me, then.

Re: Static Website Generators

#212

The main question for me is comments. I don't want to use something like Disqus, and to require something like Discourse would cancel the whole point of having a static site generator that I can host on Github Pages or Gitlab pages. Ideally, what I would like to do is to have an hackernews post automatically generated for each post, and to redirect people to the HN post if they want to comment, but I am not sure that…

>> Ideally, what I would like to do is to have an hackernews post automatically generated for each post, and to redirect people to the HN post if they want to comment, but I am not sure that HN allow this kind of use ? I would say it wouldn't be allowed as you would end up submitting to HN just 'because' and without direct regard as to whether that post contributes the community. Not all posts are HN related.

>> it wouldn't be allowed as you would end up submitting to HN just 'because' and without direct regard as to whether that post contributes the community

Yes, "Not all posts are HN related", but some of my websites always are HN related.

I don't have one general website for all purposes, I have almost "one website per purpose". One for cloud/infrastructure/k8s&docker/... posts, one for programming posts, one for business posts, ... All of those are quite likely to be "interesting enough" for the HN community.

Of course, for my personnal stuff, for my french stuff, for my music & video & photo stuff, and all the other stuff, I wouldn't even think one second of using HN as comment system.

Re: Static Website Generators

#213

I have been eyeing Lektor[1] for a little while, it seems to have good documentation, and an interesting, opinionated dev behind it. 1: https://www.getlektor.com/

A local web GUI for easier "content management", and a flat-file storage scheme of the content (without needing a database to store the content); that's what makes lektor different from other static site generators (SSGs). (The dev team behind this platform is great by the way!) Beyond these benefits, the rest is very similar to what other SSGs offer - including both the good and the bad that comes with any/all SSGs.

While lektor ultimately didn't meet my needs, I suggest that you give it a try, and see if perhaps it fits your use-case.

Re: Static Website Generators

#214
post #47

Nobody's mentioned Hexo yet (edit: here), so I will. A while back I reviewed the top 5-6 Node-based SSGs and hexo seemed like the best tradeoff between simple and flexible. https://hexo.io/ I also wrote up all the stuff I learned migrating and existing Wordpress blog to static: http://aphall.com/2016/01/migrating-wordpress-to-static/

In my preliminary testing of Hexo I was immediately annoyed that it converted my single line breaks in Markdown to
.

Re: Static Website Generators

#215
post #4

is there an ssg that is entirely web based? I don't want local files or to use a terminal. I would move away from Wordpress (and would like to) if something let me click a few buttons to set up a simple blog. I don't need anything fancy.. Let me make some basic choices and post my blogs.

You can just develop it on a Cloud9 web IDE.

Re: Static Website Generators

#216

I've tried pelican, lektor, hugo, and even a cobbled-together flask-based (using frozen pages module) custom static site builder. One of the biggest challenges/time sinks/annoyances of adopting any of these types of platforms is the time spent on the initial wiring up of the templates. Maybe I'm lazy in this regard, but I'd rather use a GUI/WYSIWYG interface to do the initial UX (not talking about design here, only p…

I've used Lektor recently and I think you're missing its main advantage: it does NOT aim to introduce web dev to non developers or to dramatically simplify the process of wiring up templates. In fact, its use of models is an additional step in the traditional process for static site generators.

BUT...once setup by a developer, Lektor's structure and Mac app allows a non-technical user to edit files and publish changes to a website, which can be hosted on S3 or other options for peanuts and has none of the security issues that afflict Wordpress.

So viewed through the lens of a potential replacement for Wordpress, I think Lektor is pretty phenomenal. The idea of a Static CMS--whether Lektor can pull this off or not--just makes so much more sense than our current CMS model.

Re: Static Website Generators

#217
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, the biggest issues is the CMS backend part of the process. I'm fine writing content for an SSG, but the marketing department is not. What I really want is a fast, open, and simple CMS BE that has a publishing workflow where the output is a static site. I've yet to fine the perfect candidate. The ones that are close are SaaS platforms and that is unfortunately unacceptable. I'm perfectly ok paying for soft…

> "I'm perfectly ok paying for software, at least if I get the source." Unusual position - source access is quite rare for commercial software, isn't it?

That would be why I don't buy software that often, at least for things like this. There is nothing, beyond fear, that prevents a commercial software package from also providing sources.

Re: Static Website Generators

#218

The main question for me is comments. I don't want to use something like Disqus, and to require something like Discourse would cancel the whole point of having a static site generator that I can host on Github Pages or Gitlab pages. Ideally, what I would like to do is to have an hackernews post automatically generated for each post, and to redirect people to the HN post if they want to comment, but I am not sure that…

Might be better to use Reddit. You could create a subreddit explicitly to serve as your comment section. This achieves the goal of outsourcing your comments to an established site without raising concerns of astroturfing.

No, the whole point of being linked to HN would be to have feedback from the community. If you prefer, if I was to use Reddit, I would rather like to be able to submit automatically all the posts of my "programming oriented website" to /r/programming , not /r/yannkempf.

Re: Static Website Generators

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the flat-file part is a breaker for my current needs unfortunately. But, being OSS I could perhaps fix that, so I'll add it to my short-list of possible solutions.

This very website we are on uses a flat-file structure (w/ millions of users). I'm curious why this is such a deal breaker for your current needs?

Not sure how HN works under the hood, so I have no real comparison. I also have no real reason to say it's not compatible beyond not thinking that locking primitives for a shared filesystem are likely inadequate. But I'm always open to being proven wrong. So, care to provide some good reading explaining why a FF system is more than adequate?

Re: Static Website Generators

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, the biggest issues is the CMS backend part of the process. I'm fine writing content for an SSG, but the marketing department is not. What I really want is a fast, open, and simple CMS BE that has a publishing workflow where the output is a static site. I've yet to fine the perfect candidate. The ones that are close are SaaS platforms and that is unfortunately unacceptable. I'm perfectly ok paying for soft…

Funny you'd mention that. We're putting the final touches to an Open Source Jekyll CMS we've built for ourselves (called Jekyll+) that does just that; give a nicer interface for marketing folks and provide multilingual support out of the box. Preview of my local copy we're prepping up for a release end of the week: http://i.imgur.com/1VyxGzqr.png Happy to have you testing it out and give me feedback.

Feel free to send me an email, I'll test it out.
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