8 ms·

My problem with Jekyll (or other static generators) is that it's not as straightforward as anything with a web gui, like wordpress or ghost (or medium or tumblr

My problem with Jekyll (or other static generators) is that it's not as straightforward as anything with a web gui, like wordpress or ghost (or medium or tumblr or...). You still need to handle things manually (e.g. the yaml front matter), the preview is not "out of the box", different plugins/extensions may add unpredictable behaviour, you need to setup a build/deploy pipeline, etc. - the experience is just not streamlined. I think that when you want to write, you shouldn't need to mess up with tech details of your system. It's distracting. Of course I'd like a static website for deploying, but I'd love a web gui which acts as a frontend for such generators. I think that Prose was something similar but I found it buggy/not updated, while another saas I tried(Forestry, I think?) was good but you couldn't customize everything. Ghost is my ultimate choice until an official, core-developers supported web gui is created for jekyll, hugo, or whatever static generator lies out there.

Tomte 7y ago
> Of course I'd like a static website for deploying, but I'd love a web gui which acts as a frontend for such generators. We used to have that with MovableType and (less known) Bricolage. Today there is Lektor (does it support Python 3?) and that's about it.
softwarelimits 7y ago
As a proud HN commentor you should have built your own static site generator long time ago. Preferably in Assembler or some esoteric unknown language!
meerita 7y ago
I use Jekyll + one admin plugin. Work locally, then do jk build and ./deploy.sh and everything goes smoothly. But well, it's not pretty interface to deploy.
zubspace 7y ago
I tried Hugo before but came to the same conclusion. The simplicity draw me into trying it, but in my opinion the solution is not streamlined. That's why i finally settled for a Flat File CMS [1], in my case Grav [2]. Like with hugo you get total control. And with most of them you get a single web interface to administrate the site, manage extensions and write blog entries. And you still have the possibility to git push everything on the dev server and git pull on prod, without managing a database. It's a dream. They are not without problems though. You need to host your php site somewhere. Sometimes it's necessary to dive into php to fix some problems and creating something unique still takes some web skills (in contrary to wordpress for example). [1] https://github.com/ahadb/flat-file-cms https://github.com/ahadb/flat-file-cms [2] https://getgrav.org/ https://getgrav.org/
- e_proxus 7y ago
  I would love something with a UI like Grav to edit and create my site, but with a static web page export to publish it. I'm fine with running the UI only locally on my computer so even a desktop app would be fine.
  - zubspace 7y ago
    There's a plugin [1] for that, but I haven't used it before. It creates plain old html files. [1] https://github.com/BarryMode/grav-plugin-blackhole https://github.com/BarryMode/grav-plugin-blackhole
tasogare 7y ago
What about a local Wordpress instance + a script to scrap content and publish it as a static website? Best of the two worlds without too much fiddling.
- alanfranz 7y ago
  Are you sure it's easy to 'scrap' ? What if the plugins render something conditionally depending on e.g. the user agent or the current time or other variables? Faking a static website through a mirror doesn't work nicely.
tonyedgecombe 7y ago
I always liked Joel Spolsky's CityDesk software. It's way out of date now but the basic principles were good. I'd love to find a modern equivalent.
zimbatm 7y ago
The main issue with Jekyll is the blog post system. It requires all the blog posts to live under `_posts/<date>-<slug>.md`. So now the user has to invoke a command-line tool to create the proper slug. Then if the post doesn't get published on the same day or the title changes the user has to rename the filename. Images live in a different folder and get all put together. A better implementation would be: render all the markdown files in the repository and map README.md to index.html. Now you can create your own file structure, have your images with the article, and optionally add them to the RSS feed by adding a `published_at` in the frontmatter. Or even better use the git history to find out when it was added (and changed) in the repo. You get all the "admin" and rendering for free from GitHub. I guess my point is that there is a lot of friction inherent to Jekyll's blog post publishing system. Since I adopted that other approach it's much easier for me. I love to only focus on the text and not worry about the rendering. And be able to edit it with my favourite text editor.
Sendotsh 7y ago
Yeah my dream blog is basically Ghost that deploys static posts when I hit Publish/Update. I’ve been slowly working on something like that for myself.
- lookingsideways 7y ago
  Have you looked into doing just that? There are a number of options and more arriving all the time. https://ghost.org/docs/api/v2/gatsby/ https://ghost.org/docs/api/v2/gatsby/ https://ghost.org/docs/api/v2/eleventy/ https://ghost.org/docs/api/v2/eleventy/ https://ghost.org/integrations/netlify/ https://ghost.org/integrations/netlify/
  - e_proxus 7y ago
    It feels a bit overkill to pay $29 per month just for a hosted blog UI. And if you're running Ghost yourself on a server or on your computer, it's not really a static site anymore.
    - lookingsideways 7y ago
      From the OP: > Of course I'd like a static website for deploying, but I'd love a web gui which acts as a frontend for such generators. If you want such a gui on your local machine you're not much more than a few commands away npm i -g ghost-cli ghost install local
  - alanfranz 7y ago
    This looks promising. I'll check it out.
ergl 7y ago
A good compromise is something like Netlify CMS[0], which adds a GUI on top of a static site generator so you can write posts through a web interface. AFAIK it works with a variety of static generators, so you have a few choices. Of course, you're tied to the netlify infrastructure. [0]: https://www.netlifycms.org https://www.netlifycms.org
- alanfranz 7y ago
  I used it. Nice but incomplete, and still needs manual tinkering.
DavidDarnes 7y ago
As much as I love Jekyll, I have to agree with your points. Jekyll isn't very accessible with it's specific front matter and file naming convention. However I don't think Jekyll will ever have a proper GUI. You can have the best of both worlds though. You can use gulp.js to build Jekyll friendly files coming from Ghost using the Ghost Content API: https://david.darn.es/tutorial/2019/08/11/use-ghost-with-jekyll/ https://david.darn.es/tutorial/2019/08/11/use-ghost-with-jek...
keb_ 7y ago
I used Jekyll for a long time before I got tired of it for the exact reason you mentioned. I used write.as for a while until I found rwtxt (https://github.com/schollz/rwtxt https://github.com/schollz/rwtxt). You could self host if needed. It's extremely minimal, but I found that it's perfect for my needs. Sample blog: https://rwtxt.com/kevinfiol https://rwtxt.com/kevinfiol
michaelanckaert 7y ago
I'm using Pelican [0] and found it really easy to setup and use.

Tomte 7y ago

> Of course I'd like a static website for deploying, but I'd love a web gui which acts as a frontend for such generators. We used to have that with MovableType and (less known) Bricolage. Today there is Lektor (does it support Python 3?) and that's about it.

softwarelimits 7y ago

As a proud HN commentor you should have built your own static site generator long time ago. Preferably in Assembler or some esoteric unknown language!

meerita 7y ago

I use Jekyll + one admin plugin. Work locally, then do jk build and ./deploy.sh and everything goes smoothly. But well, it's not pretty interface to deploy.

zubspace 7y ago

I tried Hugo before but came to the same conclusion. The simplicity draw me into trying it, but in my opinion the solution is not streamlined. That's why i finally settled for a Flat File CMS [1], in my case Grav [2]. Like with hugo you get total control. And with most of them you get a single web interface to administrate the site, manage extensions and write blog entries. And you still have the possibility to git push everything on the dev server and git pull on prod, without managing a database. It's a dream. They are not without problems though. You need to host your php site somewhere. Sometimes it's necessary to dive into php to fix some problems and creating something unique still takes some web skills (in contrary to wordpress for example). [1] https://github.com/ahadb/flat-file-cms https://github.com/ahadb/flat-file-cms [2] https://getgrav.org/ https://getgrav.org/

e_proxus 7y ago
I would love something with a UI like Grav to edit and create my site, but with a static web page export to publish it. I'm fine with running the UI only locally on my computer so even a desktop app would be fine.
- zubspace 7y ago
  There's a plugin [1] for that, but I haven't used it before. It creates plain old html files. [1] https://github.com/BarryMode/grav-plugin-blackhole https://github.com/BarryMode/grav-plugin-blackhole

tasogare 7y ago

What about a local Wordpress instance + a script to scrap content and publish it as a static website? Best of the two worlds without too much fiddling.

alanfranz 7y ago
Are you sure it's easy to 'scrap' ? What if the plugins render something conditionally depending on e.g. the user agent or the current time or other variables? Faking a static website through a mirror doesn't work nicely.

tonyedgecombe 7y ago

I always liked Joel Spolsky's CityDesk software. It's way out of date now but the basic principles were good. I'd love to find a modern equivalent.

zimbatm 7y ago

The main issue with Jekyll is the blog post system. It requires all the blog posts to live under `_posts/<date>-<slug>.md`. So now the user has to invoke a command-line tool to create the proper slug. Then if the post doesn't get published on the same day or the title changes the user has to rename the filename. Images live in a different folder and get all put together. A better implementation would be: render all the markdown files in the repository and map README.md to index.html. Now you can create your own file structure, have your images with the article, and optionally add them to the RSS feed by adding a `published_at` in the frontmatter. Or even better use the git history to find out when it was added (and changed) in the repo. You get all the "admin" and rendering for free from GitHub. I guess my point is that there is a lot of friction inherent to Jekyll's blog post publishing system. Since I adopted that other approach it's much easier for me. I love to only focus on the text and not worry about the rendering. And be able to edit it with my favourite text editor.

Sendotsh 7y ago

Yeah my dream blog is basically Ghost that deploys static posts when I hit Publish/Update. I’ve been slowly working on something like that for myself.

lookingsideways 7y ago
Have you looked into doing just that? There are a number of options and more arriving all the time. https://ghost.org/docs/api/v2/gatsby/ https://ghost.org/docs/api/v2/gatsby/ https://ghost.org/docs/api/v2/eleventy/ https://ghost.org/docs/api/v2/eleventy/ https://ghost.org/integrations/netlify/ https://ghost.org/integrations/netlify/
- e_proxus 7y ago
  It feels a bit overkill to pay $29 per month just for a hosted blog UI. And if you're running Ghost yourself on a server or on your computer, it's not really a static site anymore.
  - lookingsideways 7y ago
    From the OP: > Of course I'd like a static website for deploying, but I'd love a web gui which acts as a frontend for such generators. If you want such a gui on your local machine you're not much more than a few commands away npm i -g ghost-cli ghost install local
- alanfranz 7y ago
  This looks promising. I'll check it out.

ergl 7y ago

A good compromise is something like Netlify CMS[0], which adds a GUI on top of a static site generator so you can write posts through a web interface. AFAIK it works with a variety of static generators, so you have a few choices. Of course, you're tied to the netlify infrastructure. [0]: https://www.netlifycms.org https://www.netlifycms.org

alanfranz 7y ago
I used it. Nice but incomplete, and still needs manual tinkering.

DavidDarnes 7y ago

As much as I love Jekyll, I have to agree with your points. Jekyll isn't very accessible with it's specific front matter and file naming convention. However I don't think Jekyll will ever have a proper GUI. You can have the best of both worlds though. You can use gulp.js to build Jekyll friendly files coming from Ghost using the Ghost Content API: https://david.darn.es/tutorial/2019/08/11/use-ghost-with-jekyll/ https://david.darn.es/tutorial/2019/08/11/use-ghost-with-jek...

keb_ 7y ago

I used Jekyll for a long time before I got tired of it for the exact reason you mentioned. I used write.as for a while until I found rwtxt (https://github.com/schollz/rwtxt https://github.com/schollz/rwtxt). You could self host if needed. It's extremely minimal, but I found that it's perfect for my needs. Sample blog: https://rwtxt.com/kevinfiol https://rwtxt.com/kevinfiol

michaelanckaert 7y ago

I'm using Pelican [0] and found it really easy to setup and use.