7 ms·

> Use a static site generator. Regardless of how you serve the end-user site (generated ahead-of-time or at request time), there's enormous value in backing it

by _bxg1 7y ago

> Use a static site generator. Regardless of how you serve the end-user site (generated ahead-of-time or at request time), there's enormous value in backing it with a database and providing non-technical maintainers a friendly UI over that database for managing their own content. If you want something more minimal than the OP, you might go look up something called "Headless CMS".

ncphillips 7y ago
Forestry.io is a headless CMS that is backed by Git. It is made for Static Site generators and the content is still kept in your repository.
- divbzero 7y ago
  This looks really cool though it seems awfully close to editing Markdown and pushing to Git directly. I suppose the value it adds is abstracting away Git operations for non-technical content editors?
  - CSSer 7y ago
    Yup, pretty much. I’ve not worked extensively with Forestry, but I have with Netlify CMS, which is an alternative with a very similar premise. My experience was that it’s very difficult to build a robust CMS on top of markdown. If basic content editing is what you need, great! If, however, you need to accommodate a variety of conditions, things get dicey fast. The issue is that it’s exceedingly difficult to program or direct a CMS how to reason about even the most rudimentary primitive values or types in something as simple as markdown. After all, things are either there or they’re not. This can quickly causes your view layer to swell into an unmanageable mess. Overall, I’d use it for personal projects if I were feeling fancy (I rarely do) or client projects with very simple requirements.
  - Kimitri 7y ago
    Forestry does a lot more than just abstract away the Git operations. It has a very advanced front matter template system that makes it possible to build very complex content models while providing a nice and simple UI for managing content, menus and media. It’s really quite impressive. We’ve built a few sites on Forestry + Hugo and are very happy with the combination. https://www.jetflite.fi https://www.jetflite.fi is a good example of a site having a rather complex content model.
- jetpks 7y ago
  Is it just me, or does every page on forestry.io take 4400+ milliseconds to load? I can't even use the website because it's so bad.
  - a012 7y ago
    It isn't just you, I tried and see my self staring at their blank pages for a few seconds and then everything appears at once.
- lucasverra 7y ago
  > providing non-technical maintainers a friendly UI over that database for managing their own content how is git based Content management adequate for non-technical (read "WTF is GIT?") users ? That's why i still deliver throughout WordPress
  - Kwantuum 7y ago
    "backed by git" doesn't mean the user has to interact with git at all. The user makes a change in the interface, the CMS creates a commit and pushes to the repo.
fenwick67 7y ago
I'd love to see a CMS that runs on your local PC to drive a well-known static generator (Hugo, jekyll etc). This seems like the best of both worlds; no attack surface and easy to use.
- thrwaway69 7y ago
  https://getpublii.com/ https://getpublii.com/ There are others as well.
- ncphillips 7y ago
  TinaCMS supports this exact thing with Gatsby and Next.js There's also been some prototypes of TinaCMS being used to edit Hugo sites. https://tinacms.org https://tinacms.org
- red2awn 7y ago
  Just configure your headless CMS to make changes to your local git repo. NetlifyCMS can do this, I am sure the other ones can do too.
- xorcist 7y ago
  I've had good experience with Lektor for simple web sites. https://getlektor.com/ https://getlektor.com/
smacktoward 7y ago
There's nothing saying you couldn't provide a friendly UI on top of a static site generator. The first big hit CMS for publishing blogs, Movable Type (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movable_Type https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movable_Type), worked exactly that way -- it used MySQL as its content store and provided a nice WYSIWYG interface for working with content, but when you hit "Publish" it ground out your site as a set of static HTML files.
- _bxg1 7y ago
  The parent comment seemed to be suggesting that people use a static site generator "instead of a CMS". Part of what I was trying to do with my comment is point out the orthogonality of the two. A static site generator is just a glorified cache over a normal web server.

by _bxg1 7y ago

ncphillips 7y ago

Forestry.io is a headless CMS that is backed by Git. It is made for Static Site generators and the content is still kept in your repository.

divbzero 7y ago
This looks really cool though it seems awfully close to editing Markdown and pushing to Git directly. I suppose the value it adds is abstracting away Git operations for non-technical content editors?
- CSSer 7y ago
  Yup, pretty much. I’ve not worked extensively with Forestry, but I have with Netlify CMS, which is an alternative with a very similar premise. My experience was that it’s very difficult to build a robust CMS on top of markdown. If basic content editing is what you need, great! If, however, you need to accommodate a variety of conditions, things get dicey fast. The issue is that it’s exceedingly difficult to program or direct a CMS how to reason about even the most rudimentary primitive values or types in something as simple as markdown. After all, things are either there or they’re not. This can quickly causes your view layer to swell into an unmanageable mess. Overall, I’d use it for personal projects if I were feeling fancy (I rarely do) or client projects with very simple requirements.
- Kimitri 7y ago
  Forestry does a lot more than just abstract away the Git operations. It has a very advanced front matter template system that makes it possible to build very complex content models while providing a nice and simple UI for managing content, menus and media. It’s really quite impressive. We’ve built a few sites on Forestry + Hugo and are very happy with the combination. https://www.jetflite.fi https://www.jetflite.fi is a good example of a site having a rather complex content model.
jetpks 7y ago
Is it just me, or does every page on forestry.io take 4400+ milliseconds to load? I can't even use the website because it's so bad.
- a012 7y ago
  It isn't just you, I tried and see my self staring at their blank pages for a few seconds and then everything appears at once.
lucasverra 7y ago
> providing non-technical maintainers a friendly UI over that database for managing their own content how is git based Content management adequate for non-technical (read "WTF is GIT?") users ? That's why i still deliver throughout WordPress
- Kwantuum 7y ago
  "backed by git" doesn't mean the user has to interact with git at all. The user makes a change in the interface, the CMS creates a commit and pushes to the repo.

fenwick67 7y ago

I'd love to see a CMS that runs on your local PC to drive a well-known static generator (Hugo, jekyll etc). This seems like the best of both worlds; no attack surface and easy to use.

thrwaway69 7y ago
https://getpublii.com/ https://getpublii.com/ There are others as well.
ncphillips 7y ago
TinaCMS supports this exact thing with Gatsby and Next.js There's also been some prototypes of TinaCMS being used to edit Hugo sites. https://tinacms.org https://tinacms.org
red2awn 7y ago
Just configure your headless CMS to make changes to your local git repo. NetlifyCMS can do this, I am sure the other ones can do too.
xorcist 7y ago
I've had good experience with Lektor for simple web sites. https://getlektor.com/ https://getlektor.com/

smacktoward 7y ago

There's nothing saying you couldn't provide a friendly UI on top of a static site generator. The first big hit CMS for publishing blogs, Movable Type (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movable_Type https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movable_Type), worked exactly that way -- it used MySQL as its content store and provided a nice WYSIWYG interface for working with content, but when you hit "Publish" it ground out your site as a set of static HTML files.

_bxg1 7y ago
The parent comment seemed to be suggesting that people use a static site generator "instead of a CMS". Part of what I was trying to do with my comment is point out the orthogonality of the two. A static site generator is just a glorified cache over a normal web server.