--- /dev/null
+--- title: /blog.html
+--- description: Blog is a command-line tool to author and manage a semi-ephemeral™ blog with a gemini archive.
+## Blog
+
+Command line tool to author and manage a semi-ephemeral™ blog with a gemini archive.
+
+=> https://git.r.bdr.sh/rbdr/blog view source @ git.r.bdr.sh
+=> https://git.sr.ht/~rbdr/blog source mirror @ sourcehut
+
+## Install
+
+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.
+
+## Usage I: Authoring
+
+### Add a New Post
+
+Create a `.gmi` gemini file.
+
+You can add this to the blog using the following command:
+```
+blog --add path/to/blog_post.gmi
+```
+
+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.
+
+### Updating the Latest post
+
+If you need to make corrections to the latest post, use:
+
+```
+blog --update path/to/blog_post.gmi
+```
+
+This will replace the latest with the contents of the `path` without shifting the existing entries. It will also regenerate files.
+
+### Regenerate Static files.
+
+Adding and updating posts regenerates the blog and archive, but you can always regenerate manually (eg. if you updated your static assets or templates):
+
+```
+blog --generate
+```
+
+## Usage II: Publishing
+
+Publishing the blog and archive requires `rsync`.
+
+### Publishing the Blog
+
+You can publish to any valid `rsync` target (eg. ruben@coolserver.local:blog)
+
+```
+blog --publish <remote_server>
+```
+
+This publishes the static files, including the html index, rss feed and plaintext version of the ephemeral blog.
+
+### Publishing the Archive
+
+You can also publish the archive of posts as a gemlog by passing a valid rsync target
+
+```
+blog --publish-archive <remote_server>
+```
+
+This will include *all the posts* in gemtext format.
+
+## Usage III: Source Control
+
+Blog supports saving snapshots of the blog in git, and you can add and remove remotes with the following commands:
+
+```
+blog --add-remote <git_url>
+blog --remove-remote
+```
+
+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
+
+```
+blog --sync-up
+blog --sync-down
+```
+
+The blog will always sync down before adding to avoid going out of sync.
+
+**IF YOU CHANGE ANY FILES MANUALLY, REMEMBER TO SYNC UP, OTHERWISE YOUR CHANGES WILL BE LOST**
+
+## Usage IV: Customizing
+
+The default templates included in blog are very generic and likely not helpful for your use case. However, you can customize this freely:
+
+### Using Custom Templates
+
+You can override the default templates by creating a `templates` directory inside your blog data root (`$XDG_DATA_HOME/blog`).
+
+For the ephemeral blog you can create `feed.xml`, `index.html`, and `index.txt` inside of `templates`. These files are then parsed with [dot][dot] and passed the following variables:
+
+```
+it.posts <Array<Post>>
+
+Post
+ +id <String> // The numerical timestamp when the blog post was added.
+ +createdOn <String> // The UTC String of post creation date. (only feed.xml)
+ +title <String> // The title of the post. (only feed.xml)
+ +raw <String> // The raw gemini text of the template.
+ +html <String> // The parsed html generated from the gemini.
+```
+
+To customize your gemini archive you can provide an `index.gmi` file that will be used as a template for the archive. However the data structure is different, as it's just the gemini URL strings:
+
+```
+it.posts <Array<String>>
+```
+
+### Using Static Files
+
+Any files inside the `static` directory of your blog data root (`$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.
+
+## Usage V: Where is Data Stored?
+
+Blog uses three diretories to store data, all of them using the XDG User
+Directories.
+
+=> https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/XDG_user_directories XDG User Directories.
+
+- Configuration is stored in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/blog
+- Data such as the raw blog, templates, and static files are stored in $XDG_DATA_HOME/blog
+- Generated "ready to upload" files are stored in $XDG_CACHE_HOME/blog
+
+All of these can be overridden by environment variables.
+
+## Usage VI: Configuration
+
+You can control the number of posts in the ephemeral blog, and the location of
+all the data by using environment variables.
+
+### Overriding Number of Posts
+
+Updating the `BLOG_MAX_POSTS` environment variable sets the number of posts
+that will be kept.
+
+### Overriding Configuration Directory
+
+You can set the `BLOG_CONFIG_DIRECTORY` to any directory you want. This
+defaults to `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/blog/` and is used to store the blog remote
+config.
+
+### Overriding Data Directory
+
+Setting `BLOG_DATA_DIRECTORY` will update where the posts, archive, static
+files, and templates are saved. The default is the `$XDG_DATA_HOME/blog`.
+
+### Overriding the location of generated files.
+
+Setting `BLOG_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY` will update where generated files are placed.
+
+The default is `$XDG_CACHE_HOME/blog`.
+
+## Changelog
+
+* 6.0.0 Use custom templates, use XDG directories.
+* 5.0.2 Internal template changes
+* 5.0.1 Dependency update
+* 5.0.0 Publish using rsync instead of s3
+* 4.0.0 Add gemini archive
+* 3.0.0 Add support for RSS and TXT
+* 2.0.0 Add support for S3 publishing
+* 1.0.1 Bugs and dependency fixes
+* 1.0.0 Initial release
git.r.bdr.sh / rbdr / r.bdr.sh / commitdiff