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Free static site generator for small restaurants and cafes

lite.localcafe.org

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Re: Free static site generator for small restaurants and cafes

#51

Post by jmyeet »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #33
victorbjorklund wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PDF:s are not great on mobile. And you can’t easily translate them (I often translate restaurant menus when they are on a website with just 2 clicks)

Translating anything that renders on my screen is the same two clicks to open an LLM with the screen contents. I expect that will become an increasingly universal experience as LLM features get shoved into every nook and cranny of tech.

Translating PDFs is more complicated than that because the strcture of a PDF document doesn't lend itself well to this kind of thing.

For example: if there's a dish name with a 2 line description below it and some allergy symbols below that, in HTML you can imagine the document structure that produces that. In PDF terms that might be 4 separate objects and, in particular, the eyes can see the two lines are adjacent so they fit together but the document structure doesn't really represent it taht way, necessarily.

This might also not work with translation because the lines are set for the size of the text they contain. Same for resizing the font.

Put another waay, PDF should be viewed as a typeset and layout format, not a document format.

Re: Free static site generator for small restaurants and cafes

#52

Post by SchemaLoad »

bryanhogan wrote: post #28
SchemaLoad wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not pricey if you are a serious business making good money. It's a huge price if you are say a part time artist just wanting somewhere to store a price list, gallery and contact form. I'm just surprised there is nothing that fills the gap between github pages and a full hosted solution with a ton of junk you don't need. All it really needs is maybe a locally running app that can handle generating the static page…

The barrier to create a website using Astro + a Template + telling an LLM like Gemini what you want is very low nowadays. So still, if you work with code some technical knowledge is required, but it will only get easier, probably.

There is very little chance a non developer would make it through that. The current options are Instagram/Facebook page which is free and easy. Or a website which is either expensive or requires you to be a developer.

Re: Free static site generator for small restaurants and cafes

#53

Post by elemdos »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #14

It's pretty sad how there doesn't seem to be any decent free options for websites which are easy to use. Squarespace and such cost a fortune which isn't worth it if you aren't trying to run a full ecommerce site. Plenty of services offer free hosting of static content but don't have any way a normal person can use them. Having to use a static site generator is too hard for non programmers. I'm just surprised we haven…

That’s what I’ve been working on for the last few years: https://palacms.com (MIT) Not ready to announce the V3 RC yet (need to fill out the starter sites) but it’s working well if you wanna give it a spin - runs & deploys on Railway’s free tier.

Re: Free static site generator for small restaurants and cafes

#54

Post by yieldcrv »

glxxyz wrote: post #42
davisr wrote: post #2

No one should need JS to see the soups when that could be handled perfectly fine with CSS. I wish restaurants would just make their homepage a PDF of the menu.

Remember during Covid where every restaurant's menu was a QR code on the table that linked to a PDF in S3?

Remember how after Covid that didn't go away in tons of places

Re: Free static site generator for small restaurants and cafes

#55

Post by AlotOfReading »

jmyeet wrote: post #51
AlotOfReading wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Translating anything that renders on my screen is the same two clicks to open an LLM with the screen contents. I expect that will become an increasingly universal experience as LLM features get shoved into every nook and cranny of tech.

Translating PDFs is more complicated than that because the strcture of a PDF document doesn't lend itself well to this kind of thing. For example: if there's a dish name with a 2 line description below it and some allergy symbols below that, in HTML you can imagine the document structure that produces that. In PDF terms that might be 4 separate objects and, in particular, the eyes can see the two lines are adjacent s…

I think you're misunderstanding what I'm describing. It's getting a screenshot of the visible portion of the rendered document, not the document itself with all the tags and nastiness inside. The same feature works with a photo of handwritten text, where obviously no digital document exists. It's not perfect, but usually adequate for menu translation.

Re: Free static site generator for small restaurants and cafes

#56

Post by chiefalchemist »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #14

It's pretty sad how there doesn't seem to be any decent free options for websites which are easy to use. Squarespace and such cost a fortune which isn't worth it if you aren't trying to run a full ecommerce site. Plenty of services offer free hosting of static content but don't have any way a normal person can use them. Having to use a static site generator is too hard for non programmers. I'm just surprised we haven…

Have you looked at micro.blog? Plans start at $1 per month.

Re: Free static site generator for small restaurants and cafes

#57

Post by syntheticnature »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #14

It's pretty sad how there doesn't seem to be any decent free options for websites which are easy to use. Squarespace and such cost a fortune which isn't worth it if you aren't trying to run a full ecommerce site. Plenty of services offer free hosting of static content but don't have any way a normal person can use them. Having to use a static site generator is too hard for non programmers. I'm just surprised we haven…

Google Sites exists. Buy a domain, point it at a free Google site. So easy a religion major can make a site that looks pretty decent (ha ha, only serious; I thought he'd used Wordpress at first) for just the cost of domain registration.

Re: Free static site generator for small restaurants and cafes

#58

Post by pastel8739 »

hunter2_ wrote: post #6
davisr wrote: post #2

No one should need JS to see the soups when that could be handled perfectly fine with CSS. I wish restaurants would just make their homepage a PDF of the menu.

I agree with no JS, but why PDF over HTML? Hard-wrapping for letter-sized paper (ok, a PDF doesn't need to be letter-sized, but most menus are approximately that) with crapshoot reflow options for soft-wrapping in certain viewer apps is pretty dicey on a phone, mitigated only slightly by rotating the phone sideways. The only benefit I can think of is if it leads to more frequent updates by the restaurant, due to limi…

I vastly prefer looking at a PDF menu over an HTML one nearly all the time. PDFs are usually nicely formatted, and I don’t mind zooming and panning to see everything. HTML is frequently terribly formatted, interspersed with ads, slow, etc

Re: Free static site generator for small restaurants and cafes

#59

Post by vector_spaces »

ok123456 wrote: post #31
hunter2_ wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with no JS, but why PDF over HTML? Hard-wrapping for letter-sized paper (ok, a PDF doesn't need to be letter-sized, but most menus are approximately that) with crapshoot reflow options for soft-wrapping in certain viewer apps is pretty dicey on a phone, mitigated only slightly by rotating the phone sideways. The only benefit I can think of is if it leads to more frequent updates by the restaurant, due to limi…

If the restaurant doesn't have anything besides a menu, /index.pdf is fine—no web design required; reuse the menu they're printing anyway. The trade-off is that they'll have to pinch/zoom if they have a small display. It's a minor inconvenience to make the exact information they want available instantly.

index.pdf won't tend to play nicely with screen readers and also sucks for people on crappy mobile networks, so it's a minor inconvenience for some, and straight up unusable for others

Re: Free static site generator for small restaurants and cafes

#60

Post by hyperhello »

vector_spaces wrote: post #59
ok123456 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the restaurant doesn't have anything besides a menu, /index.pdf is fine—no web design required; reuse the menu they're printing anyway. The trade-off is that they'll have to pinch/zoom if they have a small display. It's a minor inconvenience to make the exact information they want available instantly.

index.pdf won't tend to play nicely with screen readers and also sucks for people on crappy mobile networks, so it's a minor inconvenience for some, and straight up unusable for others

But you can easily serve a desktop version or a small screen version.
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