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I did a prototype of my personal news site in HTML/CSS (no JS for maximum compatibility) with every intention of eventually automating the generation and making

I did a prototype of my personal news site in HTML/CSS (no JS for maximum compatibility) with every intention of eventually automating the generation and making a dynamic submission system. I still haven’t bothered because it’s always been less time consuming to just to edit it by hand, and it affords me the occasional customized post/entry whenever I need to post something special. Literally only using either Notepad++/FileZilla on desktop or an iOS FTP text editor combined with iOS Shortcuts if on mobile to generate and apply new posts. For Notepad++ I saved macros for different post formats, the macro pulls the URL from my clipboard and wraps it in the HTML according to which shortcut key. The iOS workflow does the same thing and lives as a cluster of app icons that trigger custom iOS Shortcuts in a folder on my Home screen, I just tap it, it pops-up an iOS input modal asking for the post title, then automatically wraps the HTML around both the text I input as well as the URL I already copied onto my clipboard, then takes the entire HTML chunk and overwrites my clipboard with it so I can paste into the index.html via the iOS FTP text editor. In both cases it’s simple and fast, on iOS the FTP editor is always editing the live file, on desktop I just download the latest using FileZilla prior to doing any edit/upload. When on desktop I also (when not in a hurry) commit the latest version to a git repo. (For larger and less commonly used updates, like formatted sections or special link highlights, I just have a templates.html file that I copy from as needed.)

arkitaip 6y ago
I love what you are basically suggesting is the jerry-rigged version of Frontpage or Dreamweaver.
- luxuryballs 6y ago
  I mean don’t think of it as a suggestion so much as a natural outcome of the prototype becoming the “official” version due to it being less expensive to finish and more importantly less expensive to change. I still intend on automating it someday, and always told myself I would once I confirmed exactly what I wanted to automate and how. So far, the ability to change the formatting and add custom edits without having to do any real development or deploying anything has been higher value and lower barrier of entry so I’ve yet to find the need and I can update the site in seconds. The only real motivation to automate is for some things like the publishing date and Bitcoin/gold/silver prices at the time, but so far I still have just been editing it manually, and sometimes neglecting to update entirely if I’m in a hurry to just add a breaking headline. I hadn’t thought of the take away but to me that’s what it should be if I were to highlight one, let the productive outcome vs. cost dictate the level of effort, which for web may naturally fall into somewhere on a spectrum between static HTML and cloud container deployments with automated testing and builds from CI deploying a dynamic data driven platform, depending on your needs.

arkitaip 6y ago

I love what you are basically suggesting is the jerry-rigged version of Frontpage or Dreamweaver.

luxuryballs 6y ago
I mean don’t think of it as a suggestion so much as a natural outcome of the prototype becoming the “official” version due to it being less expensive to finish and more importantly less expensive to change. I still intend on automating it someday, and always told myself I would once I confirmed exactly what I wanted to automate and how. So far, the ability to change the formatting and add custom edits without having to do any real development or deploying anything has been higher value and lower barrier of entry so I’ve yet to find the need and I can update the site in seconds. The only real motivation to automate is for some things like the publishing date and Bitcoin/gold/silver prices at the time, but so far I still have just been editing it manually, and sometimes neglecting to update entirely if I’m in a hurry to just add a breaking headline. I hadn’t thought of the take away but to me that’s what it should be if I were to highlight one, let the productive outcome vs. cost dictate the level of effort, which for web may naturally fall into somewhere on a spectrum between static HTML and cloud container deployments with automated testing and builds from CI deploying a dynamic data driven platform, depending on your needs.