eternia VS Metalsmith

https://www.catpea.com/ custom code exploring github editable data, that is then processed into a local .cache folder and made into an express (JS) website which I then spider to convert into a static version.

UI uses bootstrap with minor modifications.

Compilation is handeled via https://github.com/catpea/eternia which I can't replace with hugo, as I want to have a notion of books, playlists, maybe javascript apps in some articles. I need a custom static site generator.

I am learning how to Narrate audiobooks while reading my own poetry, and learning how to write out philosophical ideas in the process.

I also convert the audio into simple videos on youtube, and recently uploaded a 70+ hour behemoth to the Internet Archive (3.6GB) https://archive.org/details/@catpea-com

I recommend making an audio recording of your writings (I use audacity and a mic with a pop/plosive filer) even if just for your family for 50 or a 100 years from now.

I have no views, I have no time to argue with people which is why I keep away from social media, I only have time make a stranger laugh (I do digital portraits on reddit and occasionally compose a weird song on youtube).

As to the content it self, I am just exploring random subjects, that capture my own curiosity. It is nothing special, it will take me a couple more decades to grow into a writer. This is my start.

Currently I am babbling about digital painting, previously 3D Printing, Music Composition, Circuit Design, Programming, Teaching, Dancing (I dance to Blanco Brown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7U6AoZ27yE at the gym every day I can't help it), Bicycling, Camping, and sending people on the Appalachian trail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPSvdKTEZug

I host with vercel, as a hobby project. If you want to grab all the audio, use the archive.org or youtube. The archive.org link has everything one file, and youtube has a playlist you can hop around.

I am not a fan of ads, I understand YouTube maybe running their own ads on videos I did not monetize. If I recorded a video of my readings, and did video editing, I would regret putting all that time into videos that now would have ads between them.

I like being a narrator, not a fan of videos, decades from now I'll write an AudioBook, in which I complain about High School.

Metalsmith — the best customizable SSG

I use Metalsmith. Been happy with it. I build my site into a self-contained nginx docker image.

const Metalsmith = require('metalsmith') const markdown = require('@metalsmith/markdown') const layouts = require('metalsmith-layouts') const permalinks = require('@metalsmith/permalinks') const collections = require('metalsmith-collections') Metalsmith(__dirname) .metadata({ sitename: 'Website Name', description: "Website description.", generator: 'Metalsmith', url: 'https://metalsmith.io/' }) .source('./src') .destination('./build') // .clean(true) .use( collections({ projects: 'pages/*.md', reverse: true, refer: true }) ) .use(markdown()) .use(permalinks()) .use( layouts({ engineOptions: { helpers: { formattedDate: function (date) { return new Date(date).toLocaleDateString() } } } }) ) .build(function (err, files) { if (err) throw err })

I also started to move to hugo, but they didn't merge the pr [2] which would have helped in the transition. :(

The look is still similar to what it was in the beginning, in terms of colors at least.

[1] https://github.com/metalsmith/metalsmith

Metalsmith

A static site generator I've been enjoying lately (and using for my blog) is Metalsmith: https://metalsmith.io/

It feel like it's the best of both worlds, because it's simple to learn and customize, but there are plugins for the things you don't want to spend time writing yourself.

For example, I'm using plugins to: check for broken links, generate an RSS feed, and run a test server with automatic reloading.

But then I was able to easily add in my own code to handle relative links, generate Graphviz diagrams, and format dates.

One other recommendation: I hated almost every template language I ran across (Hugo's, Liquid, Nunjucks, EJS), but I'm thrilled with the simplicity of Handlebars (https://handlebarsjs.com/), although it is a bit limiting and the "block helper with parameters" syntax is strange (perhaps an indicator that I'm trying to do too much in the templating language!).

I believe Metalsmith [1] is trying that approach

[1] https://metalsmith.io/