Show HN: Blot, a static blog powered by Dropbox
1–10 of 37 posts
Re: Show HN: Blot, a static blog powered by Dropbox
#2This is awesome! Congrats on your launch!
I saw your video intro also. I tried to do something similar using Flickr API and Javascript -- to create free Photographer Portfolio websites using Dropbox for my friend.
Then I abandoned the project few days after we went live because every few days, the site visitor would get a bandwidth exceeded error from Dropbox and the site would not render.
In this context, some questions for you
1) How do you account for Dropbox bandwidth usage exceeding? Esp. if I start using your service, and my post ends up on front page of HN?
2) How do we embed Media, ex: Images and Videos? Is there some convention that a blogger must follow in the markdown posts? Should the media be uploaded to some common folder (like how wordpress has wp-upload folder) or does it reside in a sub-folder?
3) URLs? How are urls handled? Do we have ability to over-ride it?
4) Archives (for SEO) ?
5) PermUrls (for social sharing) ?
6) Sitemaps to submit to google, yahoo etc (for increasing Traffic) ?
Sorry for all the questions, but I am really looking to use Dropbox for blogging and this seems like a great idea! Just trying to make sure some/all my needs are met.
Re: Show HN: Blot, a static blog powered by Dropbox
#3This is awesome! Congrats on your launch! I saw your video intro also. I tried to do something similar using Flickr API and Javascript -- to create free Photographer Portfolio websites using Dropbox for my friend. Then I abandoned the project few days after we went live because every few days, the site visitor would get a bandwidth exceeded error from Dropbox and the site would not render. In this context, some quest…
I would love to see this questions answered!
Re: Show HN: Blot, a static blog powered by Dropbox
#4Nice idea! I've been meaning to design something similar for myself but once I tried Jekyll I was sold! One tip - The responsive layout[0] makes the blog post very narrow and unreadable. Hiding the side menu might probably give more room to the content.
[0] - http://drp.io/SP
Re: Show HN: Blot, a static blog powered by Dropbox
#5This is awesome! Congrats on your launch! I saw your video intro also. I tried to do something similar using Flickr API and Javascript -- to create free Photographer Portfolio websites using Dropbox for my friend. Then I abandoned the project few days after we went live because every few days, the site visitor would get a bandwidth exceeded error from Dropbox and the site would not render. In this context, some quest…
Great questions! These are definitely things I should address on Blot's website.
1) Blog posts are converted into HTML, stored on my servers, which Blot then serves to people who visit your blog. Dropbox's bandwidth cap won't affect your blog.
2) Currently you can use markdown to embed an external image. In future I want to add a way to embed images that are inside Blot's Dropbox folder.
3) Each blog post is assigned an id. The slug after the ID is for SEO purposes. For example, all these URLs point to the same blog post:
http://david.blot.im/37/san-francisco-to-la
http://david.blot.im/37/foo-bar
I plan to add a mechanism to override the generated URL slug.
4) Blot automatically generates an archives page for each Blog. See my archive page here:
5) I don't quite understand this question, did I answer this in #3?
6) Sitemaps are on the to do list!
Re: Show HN: Blot, a static blog powered by Dropbox
#6Slick! Good questions from justboxing, though, esp. around bandwidth....
Re: Show HN: Blot, a static blog powered by Dropbox
#7This is so simple. Well done. Collaboration wise, and editing wise, this is just a magnificent solution. All native.
Something to work on, as this is really plain jane:-
Media embedding? Comments? Custom URL generation? Some nice custom CSS's available? Microsoft Word support? If I upload my Thesis (MS Word), will the tables/pictures be automatically uploaded?
There is a chapter that I want to upload straightaway, and this solution can be a godsend solution for that purpose. Cut the chapter and drop it in the folder. 5 second work. I am amazed by the simplicity.
Re: Show HN: Blot, a static blog powered by Dropbox
#8Great job! Does it support all of markdown? Can I use code blocks, and you'll use
tags? Also, if I have multiple h1's (#) which do you use as the title?My only feedback is charge per month, and more. I'd be willing to pay $4 a month without thinking twice.
How do you handle scale if you are hosting it? Are you load balanced? Highly available? Do you use a CDN?
Re: Show HN: Blot, a static blog powered by Dropbox
#9Great job! Does it support all of markdown? Can I use code blocks, and you'll use tags? Also, if I have multiple h1's (#) which do you use as the title? My only feedback is charge per month, and more. I'd be willing to pay $4 a month without thinking twice. How do you handle scale if you are hosting it? Are you load balanced? Highly available? Do you use a CDN?
Thank you! Blot does support all of markdown. You can indeed use code blocks!
The title is generated from the first H1 tag if there is one.
Scaling the site is honestly something I'm going to have to learn more about. I'll set up a load balancer before it becomes necessary. Currently a single EC2 instance seems to be working OK.
As for pricing, the price will only go up in future and perhaps I'll move to a monthly fee. I just wanted to get something set up quickly.
Re: Show HN: Blot, a static blog powered by Dropbox
#10This looks interesting. Congratulations on your product launch.
There is something similar out there called calepin (1). It uses the python based pelican static web site generator. Not sure what extra features your solution offers.