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Blog (6.0.0)

NOTE: This documentation is for the deprecated javascript-based blog 6.0.0. For the newer blog, you should go to the main documentation[1].

[1] Main documentation for blog

Command line tool to author and manage a semi-ephemeral™ blog with a gemini archive.

view source @ git.r.bdr.sh

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.

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.

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