7 ms·

Show HN: Simple-blogger – blog generated from GitHub project READMEs

52 points by depthfirst 6y ago

frequentnapper 6y ago
this functionality has already been available as part of github pages. Not really sure what you are adding here.
- antoncohen 6y ago
  I don't think so. This uses the GitHub API via browser side Javascript to auto generate a page, listing and rendering the READMEs in your recent repos. Plus listing and rendering the .md files in a special "blog-posts" repo. This is similar to what some big companies do to render a projects page. A copied Twitter's[1][2] a while back when it was simpler[3][4]. [1] https://twitter.github.io/ https://twitter.github.io/ [2] https://github.com/twitter/twitter.github.io https://github.com/twitter/twitter.github.io [3] http://antoncohen.github.io/ http://antoncohen.github.io/ [4] https://github.com/antoncohen/antoncohen.github.io https://github.com/antoncohen/antoncohen.github.io
  - city41 6y ago
    I’m confused about the blog-posts repo. Why wouldn’t that be the only data source? Why would you want to pull in other repos?
    - depthfirst 6y ago
      There are two use-cases: project pages (from github repo README) and blog-posts (coming from .md files in blog-posts repo). You can choose to not have blog-posts and it will still generate a blog-like site from all your github project READMEs.
kfk 6y ago
I have created something similar. I have a content folder with articles and auto generate content on my site at each commit. I built it as a Docker container and I run it on Nomad. It’s interesting how much content (crm?) we can put together by scraping other apps we use (github, hacker news, reddit, etc)
pcr910303 6y ago
This is... at best not favorable for a lot of static blogs. For people who didn't understand what this is doing - it's using client-side JS to load the markdown files from GitHub, compiling it to HTML and displaying it on the browser. Looks like the advantage of this is that it's a one-time setup - you don't need to build the files every time you commit, you can add your markdown files on GitHub and it automatically gets 'added' to your blog. The downside of this is that this makes RSS feeds impossible, and non-JS users will suffer.
- depthfirst 6y ago
  Thats correct; thanks for summarizing. I (the author) was mainly aiming for the one-time setup.
- nindalf 6y ago
  > you don’t need to build the files every time you commit. Is this a big advantage? I write an article in markdown and push to my server. The server’s post-commit hook automatically runs a static site generator. It takes less than a second to run each time. It took me half an hour to set this up[1], https included. Importantly, since it’s a static site with no client side JS, it’s faster and better for SEO. Anecdotal evidence - my blog is a featured snippet from google for a couple of tech related queries. This wasn’t the case earlier when my blog was generated by ghost. [1] - https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/setting-up-this-blog/ https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/setting-up-this-blog/
  - johnonolan 6y ago
    Whether you choose to use clientside JS isn't related to any platform. Lots of people conflate this. They build ostensibly a totally empty scaffold site with an SSG and say "look how fast it is" - but the truth is if you built that same site with really any platform in the world, it would be just as fast. Ghost doesnt require any clientside JS of any kind, it's totally user choice if/when they want to have that. Yesterday I built a Ghost theme with 2.5kb page size, and average pageload of 100ms. Super easy :)
    - 6y ago
lihaciudaniel 6y ago
Looks amazing project! But can you set up a customizable 404 Page so that if doesn't show the GitHub 404 Page, and also remove anything related to github
captn3m0 6y ago
I do this for automatically generating pages on my personal website for various projects via Jekyll. So https://captnemo.in/ideas/ https://captnemo.in/ideas/ loads the README from https://github.com/captn3m0/ideas https://github.com/captn3m0/ideas. If you'd like to replicate, use this layout[0], and create a post with just a few bits of frontmatter[1] The obvious advantage is that I can now serve READMEs for various projects within my website, without having to worry about updating it in any way. The READMEs stay in their respective projects. Its all done client side though, so not recommended if you'd like to use the page on your website as the primary. The one issue is that internal links in markdown don't work easily. [0]: https://github.com/captn3m0/captn3m0.github.com/blob/master/_layouts/repo.html https://github.com/captn3m0/captn3m0.github.com/blob/master/... [1]: https://github.com/captn3m0/captn3m0.github.com/blob/master/projects/ideas.md https://github.com/captn3m0/captn3m0.github.com/blob/master/...

52 points by depthfirst 6y ago

frequentnapper 6y ago

this functionality has already been available as part of github pages. Not really sure what you are adding here.

antoncohen 6y ago
I don't think so. This uses the GitHub API via browser side Javascript to auto generate a page, listing and rendering the READMEs in your recent repos. Plus listing and rendering the .md files in a special "blog-posts" repo. This is similar to what some big companies do to render a projects page. A copied Twitter's[1][2] a while back when it was simpler[3][4]. [1] https://twitter.github.io/ https://twitter.github.io/ [2] https://github.com/twitter/twitter.github.io https://github.com/twitter/twitter.github.io [3] http://antoncohen.github.io/ http://antoncohen.github.io/ [4] https://github.com/antoncohen/antoncohen.github.io https://github.com/antoncohen/antoncohen.github.io
- city41 6y ago
  I’m confused about the blog-posts repo. Why wouldn’t that be the only data source? Why would you want to pull in other repos?
  - depthfirst 6y ago
    There are two use-cases: project pages (from github repo README) and blog-posts (coming from .md files in blog-posts repo). You can choose to not have blog-posts and it will still generate a blog-like site from all your github project READMEs.

kfk 6y ago

I have created something similar. I have a content folder with articles and auto generate content on my site at each commit. I built it as a Docker container and I run it on Nomad. It’s interesting how much content (crm?) we can put together by scraping other apps we use (github, hacker news, reddit, etc)

pcr910303 6y ago

This is... at best not favorable for a lot of static blogs. For people who didn't understand what this is doing - it's using client-side JS to load the markdown files from GitHub, compiling it to HTML and displaying it on the browser. Looks like the advantage of this is that it's a one-time setup - you don't need to build the files every time you commit, you can add your markdown files on GitHub and it automatically gets 'added' to your blog. The downside of this is that this makes RSS feeds impossible, and non-JS users will suffer.

depthfirst 6y ago
Thats correct; thanks for summarizing. I (the author) was mainly aiming for the one-time setup.
nindalf 6y ago
> you don’t need to build the files every time you commit. Is this a big advantage? I write an article in markdown and push to my server. The server’s post-commit hook automatically runs a static site generator. It takes less than a second to run each time. It took me half an hour to set this up[1], https included. Importantly, since it’s a static site with no client side JS, it’s faster and better for SEO. Anecdotal evidence - my blog is a featured snippet from google for a couple of tech related queries. This wasn’t the case earlier when my blog was generated by ghost. [1] - https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/setting-up-this-blog/ https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/setting-up-this-blog/
- johnonolan 6y ago
  Whether you choose to use clientside JS isn't related to any platform. Lots of people conflate this. They build ostensibly a totally empty scaffold site with an SSG and say "look how fast it is" - but the truth is if you built that same site with really any platform in the world, it would be just as fast. Ghost doesnt require any clientside JS of any kind, it's totally user choice if/when they want to have that. Yesterday I built a Ghost theme with 2.5kb page size, and average pageload of 100ms. Super easy :)
  - 6y ago

lihaciudaniel 6y ago

Looks amazing project! But can you set up a customizable 404 Page so that if doesn't show the GitHub 404 Page, and also remove anything related to github

captn3m0 6y ago

I do this for automatically generating pages on my personal website for various projects via Jekyll. So https://captnemo.in/ideas/ https://captnemo.in/ideas/ loads the README from https://github.com/captn3m0/ideas https://github.com/captn3m0/ideas. If you'd like to replicate, use this layout[0], and create a post with just a few bits of frontmatter[1] The obvious advantage is that I can now serve READMEs for various projects within my website, without having to worry about updating it in any way. The READMEs stay in their respective projects. Its all done client side though, so not recommended if you'd like to use the page on your website as the primary. The one issue is that internal links in markdown don't work easily. [0]: https://github.com/captn3m0/captn3m0.github.com/blob/master/_layouts/repo.html https://github.com/captn3m0/captn3m0.github.com/blob/master/... [1]: https://github.com/captn3m0/captn3m0.github.com/blob/master/projects/ideas.md https://github.com/captn3m0/captn3m0.github.com/blob/master/...