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Show HN: Blot, a static blog powered by Dropbox

blot.im

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Re: Show HN: Blot, a static blog powered by Dropbox

#11

Post by nodesocket »

dmerfield wrote: post #9
nodesocket wrote: post #8

Great 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 fe…

Let me know if I can help with infrastructure. I'm the founder of https://commando.io and can help you with server setup, management, and deployment. We also use nginx heavily and can assist optimizing it for serving your static content. Send me an e-mail, it is in my profile.

Re: Show HN: Blot, a static blog powered by Dropbox

#13

Post by justboxing »

dmerfield wrote: post #5
justboxing wrote: post #2

This 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…

Many thanks for answering my questions. Yes You addressed #5 in #3.

Looking forward to seeing your updates on the Blot framework. Rock on!!

Re: Show HN: Blot, a static blog powered by Dropbox

#15

Post by dmerfield »

iamshs wrote: post #7

This 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, an…

These are all great ideas.

Media embedding is already possible using markdown. I plan to add a feature to embed media that you put inside Blot's folder.

Here's what I'm planning to add to Blot, roughly ordered by priority.

1. Comments

2. Support for other file formats. RTF will be the easiest to add next, then DOC and perhaps PDF. There are libraries which make this relatively straightforward but I need to evaluate them first.

3. Custom blog post URLs. More generally allow you to customize each post's metadata.

4. Photo posts

Re: Show HN: Blot, a static blog powered by Dropbox

#16

Post by bachmeier »

diverightin63 wrote: post #12

This looks cool, but I'm not a fan of this tagline: "Your current blogging platform is complicated, slow and badly designed. It makes blogging a chore."

I came to write the same thing. I use org-mode + Jekyll and it couldn't get any less complicated. It's not slow and not badly designed either, IMO.

Re: Show HN: Blot, a static blog powered by Dropbox

#17

Post by dmerfield »

bachmeier wrote: post #16
diverightin63 wrote: post #12

This looks cool, but I'm not a fan of this tagline: "Your current blogging platform is complicated, slow and badly designed. It makes blogging a chore."

I came to write the same thing. I use org-mode + Jekyll and it couldn't get any less complicated. It's not slow and not badly designed either, IMO.

Really appreciate the feedback. Will come up with some alternatives to this copy to test.

Re: Show HN: Blot, a static blog powered by Dropbox

#18

Post by rb2e »

I signed up. Was as simple to use as the video describes.

Things I would like added:

1)Possibility to add a seperate about page and other pages.

2)Allow for a one line blurb on sidebar to describe what the blog is all about.

3)Custom Title for blog/site. Eg 's blog to My Awesome Site.

4)Option to remove date from post instead of having to use CSS display:none:

Otherwise I'm happy. Was using WordPress and SquareSpace recently to host a simple blog but felt like it was overkill. I do not like either of their mobile apps. They feel clunky compared to IA Writer.

And for me, for writing, you cannot beat the simplicity of your favourite text editor and dropbox for publishing. Whether on desktop or mobile. The combination works really well.

First impressions, am happy with blot.im. Its barebones but lets see how it turns out in the wild.

Re: Show HN: Blot, a static blog powered by Dropbox

#19

Post by dmerfield »

rb2e wrote: post #18

I signed up. Was as simple to use as the video describes. Things I would like added: 1)Possibility to add a seperate about page and other pages. 2)Allow for a one line blurb on sidebar to describe what the blog is all about. 3)Custom Title for blog/site. Eg 's blog to My Awesome Site. 4)Option to remove date from post instead of having to use CSS display:none: Otherwise I'm happy. Was using WordPress and SquareSpace…

Awesome, thank you for giving it a try!

These are all good features to have.

1) About page and custom pages are on the to do list. I need to work out a simple way to add this content from the user's perspective.

2 & 3) Great idea for the blurb and custom site title.

4) Interesting, hadn't anticipated this request. Would you like a global option to hide publish dates?

And yeah, IA writer is excellent. It's great to be able to publish a blog post from inside their mobile app!

Re: Show HN: Blot, a static blog powered by Dropbox

#20

Post by bluthru »

dmerfield wrote: post #19
rb2e wrote: post #18

I signed up. Was as simple to use as the video describes. Things I would like added: 1)Possibility to add a seperate about page and other pages. 2)Allow for a one line blurb on sidebar to describe what the blog is all about. 3)Custom Title for blog/site. Eg 's blog to My Awesome Site. 4)Option to remove date from post instead of having to use CSS display:none: Otherwise I'm happy. Was using WordPress and SquareSpace…

Awesome, thank you for giving it a try! These are all good features to have. 1) About page and custom pages are on the to do list. I need to work out a simple way to add this content from the user's perspective. 2 & 3) Great idea for the blurb and custom site title. 4) Interesting, hadn't anticipated this request. Would you like a global option to hide publish dates? And yeah, IA writer is excellent. It's great to be…

Maybe have each site page require an underscore: _about.txt, _links.txt, etc. This way the pages appear at the top of the dropbox folder.
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