git.r.bdr.sh - rbdr/r.bdr.sh/blob - blog.gmi

   1 --- title: /blog.html
   2 --- description: Blog is a command-line tool to author and manage a semi-ephemeral™ blog with a gemini archive.
   3 ## Blog
   4
   5 Command line tool to author and manage a semi-ephemeral™ blog with a gemini archive.
   6
   7 => https://git.r.bdr.sh/rbdr/blog view source @ git.r.bdr.sh
   8 => https://git.sr.ht/~rbdr/blog source mirror @ sourcehut
   9
  10 ## Install
  11
  12 At the moment only installation from source is available. Clone this repository and run `pnpm install -g .`. This will add the `blog` command to your shell.
  13
  14 ## Usage I: Authoring
  15
  16 ### Add a New Post
  17
  18 Create a `.gmi` gemini file.
  19
  20 You can add this to the blog using the following command:
  21 ```
  22 blog --add path/to/blog_post.gmi
  23 ```
  24
  25 This it will shift all posts and remove the oldest one if the limit of posts is reached (defualts to 3). This will also regenerate the static files.
  26
  27 ### Updating the Latest post
  28
  29 If you need to make corrections to the latest post, use:
  30
  31 ```
  32 blog --update path/to/blog_post.gmi
  33 ```
  34
  35 This will replace the latest with the contents of the `path` without shifting the existing entries. It will also regenerate files.
  36
  37 ### Regenerate Static files.
  38
  39 Adding and updating posts regenerates the blog and archive, but you can always regenerate manually (eg. if you updated your static assets or templates):
  40
  41 ```
  42 blog --generate
  43 ```
  44
  45 ## Usage II: Publishing
  46
  47 Publishing the blog and archive requires `rsync`.
  48
  49 ### Publishing the Blog
  50
  51 You can publish to any valid `rsync` target (eg. ruben@coolserver.local:blog)
  52
  53 ```
  54 blog --publish <remote_server>
  55 ```
  56
  57 This publishes the static files, including the html index, rss feed and plaintext version of the ephemeral blog.
  58
  59 ### Publishing the Archive
  60
  61 You can also publish the archive of posts as a gemlog by passing a valid rsync target
  62
  63 ```
  64 blog --publish-archive <remote_server>
  65 ```
  66
  67 This will include *all the posts* in gemtext format.
  68
  69 ## Usage III: Source Control
  70
  71 Blog supports saving snapshots of the blog in git, and you can add and remove remotes with the following commands:
  72
  73 ```
  74 blog --add-remote <git_url>
  75 blog --remove-remote
  76 ```
  77
  78 If a remote is present, it will be pulled before adding or updating, and pushed after it finishes. You can manually trigger this by calling
  79
  80 ```
  81 blog --sync-up
  82 blog --sync-down
  83 ```
  84
  85 The blog will always sync down before adding to avoid going out of sync.
  86
  87 **IF YOU CHANGE ANY FILES MANUALLY, REMEMBER TO SYNC UP, OTHERWISE YOUR CHANGES WILL BE LOST**
  88
  89 ## Usage IV: Customizing
  90
  91 The default templates included in blog are very generic and likely not helpful for your use case. However, you can customize this freely:
  92
  93 ### Using Custom Templates
  94
  95 You can override the default templates by creating a `templates` directory inside your blog data root (`$XDG_DATA_HOME/blog`).
  96
  97 For the ephemeral blog you can create `feed.xml`, `index.html`, and `index.txt` inside of `templates`. These files are then parsed with [dot][dot] and passed the following variables:
  98
  99 ```
 100 it.posts <Array<Post>>
 101
 102 Post
 103  +id <String>        // The numerical timestamp when the blog post was added.
 104  +createdOn <String> // The UTC String of post creation date. (only feed.xml)
 105  +title <String>     // The title of the post. (only feed.xml)
 106  +raw <String>       // The raw gemini text of the template.
 107  +html <String>      // The parsed html generated from the gemini.
 108 ```
 109
 110 To customize your gemini archive you can provide an `index.gmi` file that will be used as a template for the archive. However the data structure is different, as it's just the gemini URL strings:
 111
 112 ```
 113 it.posts <Array<String>>
 114 ```
 115
 116 ### Using Static Files
 117
 118 Any files inside the `static` directory of your blog data root (`$XDG_DATA_HOME/blog`) will be copied as is. This is useful for any images, javascript files or stylesheets that you use in your posts or templates.
 119
 120 ## Usage V: Where is Data Stored?
 121
 122 Blog uses three diretories to store data, all of them using the XDG User
 123 Directories.
 124
 125 => https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/XDG_user_directories XDG User Directories.
 126
 127 - Configuration is stored in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/blog
 128 - Data such as the raw blog, templates, and static files are stored in $XDG_DATA_HOME/blog
 129 - Generated "ready to upload" files are stored in $XDG_CACHE_HOME/blog
 130
 131 All of these can be overridden by environment variables.
 132
 133 ## Usage VI: Configuration
 134
 135 You can control the number of posts in the ephemeral blog, and the location of
 136 all the data by using environment variables.
 137
 138 ### Overriding Number of Posts
 139
 140 Updating the `BLOG_MAX_POSTS` environment variable sets the number of posts
 141 that will be kept.
 142
 143 ### Overriding Configuration Directory
 144
 145 You can set the `BLOG_CONFIG_DIRECTORY` to any directory you want. This
 146 defaults to `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/blog/` and is used to store the blog remote
 147 config.
 148
 149 ### Overriding Data Directory
 150
 151 Setting `BLOG_DATA_DIRECTORY` will update where the posts, archive, static
 152 files, and templates are saved. The default is the `$XDG_DATA_HOME/blog`.
 153
 154 ### Overriding the location of generated files.
 155
 156 Setting `BLOG_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY` will update where generated files are placed.
 157
 158 The default is `$XDG_CACHE_HOME/blog`.
 159
 160 ## Changelog
 161
 162 * 6.0.0 Use custom templates, use XDG directories.
 163 * 5.0.2 Internal template changes
 164 * 5.0.1 Dependency update
 165 * 5.0.0 Publish using rsync instead of s3
 166 * 4.0.0 Add gemini archive
 167 * 3.0.0 Add support for RSS and TXT
 168 * 2.0.0 Add support for S3 publishing
 169 * 1.0.1 Bugs and dependency fixes
 170 * 1.0.0 Initial release