BLIS (BLog It Simple)
Static Web Journaling & Blogging System
Created by Richard Rathe, December 2024 (Incomplete)
BLIS is an alternative to Wordpress and other database-dependent online publishing environments. One obvious problem with such systems is portability. They generally store text in a database, while media such as images are stored in nested directories by date. It can be daunting to put all these scattered parts back together again outside the original site. (I'm working on converting my WP materials now…it may take several months!)
- BLIS Design Features
- Ordinary Static Web Pages (no database or dynamic page generation)
- (index.html files are explicit, not treated as special)
- Simple Hierarchical Site Structure (directory tree)
- Context-Driven Primary Indexing (each category has a directory)
- Uses Standard Browser Navigation Tools (Back, Next, Search, etc.)
- Self-Contained Articles (text & images are stored together)
- Articles are Stand Alone & Portable
- Automatic Refresh of Home Page (running as a cron job)
- Web Standards Used Throughout! (html, css, js)
Still working on this…
KIST
Keep It Simple Text (KIST) is a lightweight, plain text documentation & publishing system I started developing in 2020. I've added several small tweaks to make it compatible with BLIS.
- Special metadata in the <head> element:
- modsecs (modified time in seconds, required)
- creation date or year (recommended)
- categories (optional)
- hashtags (optional)
- author (optional)
- A tiny bit of css for the BLIS <nav> bar
The modsecs
value serves as a unique identifier for the current version of the original document. The system is structured to re-display older articles when they have been updated without changing their original publication year. If no creation date is specified, BLIS will use the modified time for the original file (which will change with each edit).
Any standards-compliant HTML file can become an article if the above requirements are met.
Both BLIS and KIST are open-source perl scripts.
FTP
One publishing model is to do all the work on your local system, and then sync with the server via FTP.
