BLIS User Guide & Technical Details

Intro

BLIS has four major components:

• blis.pl (perl script/daemon)
• a root directory with system files
• categorical directory tree containing articles
• articles formatted in html

System Files & Directories

These are the core system elements:

• blis.cfg - local configuration file
• blis.css - local styles for main page
• blis.htmf - html template for main page
• blis.js - javascript used by main page
• blis_media/ - media used by main page
• various static html files (about, help, etc.) linked from main page

The blis.htmf file is key (htmf = html fragment or template). As a template it has several fill in the blank tokens for blis.pl to complete:

• _MSG_ - optional general top message banner (defined in blis.cfg)
• _QUOTE_ - optional quote of the day area
• _COL1_ - left-most column to be filled with content
• _COL2_ - middle column to be filled with content
• _SIDE_ - right-most column to be filled with navigation and other links
• _FOOT_ - footer content

Articles

Potentially any well-formatted html file will work. However, there are a few requirements and options:

• The file must have an <h1> element (to place BLIS <nav> links).
• The file must have a modsecs meta data element. This non-negative integer must be unique and serves as the document ID for the BLIS instance.
• It helps if the file is html5 compatible, but older doctypes will work with minor errors.

A minimal suite of meta tags are these:

• <meta name=modsecs content=1739741816 /> (required!)
• <meta name=date content=December 2024 /> (strongly recommended)
• <meta name=author content=Richard Rathe /> (recommended)
• <meta name=category content=programming /> (optional)
• <meta name=hashtags content=html,perl /> (optional)

Meta tag modsecs must be present or the file will be treated as a non-article. This should be the system time in seconds that the source file was lasted updated (as returned by the Perl `time` function).

A date or year element is strongly recommended to fix the publication in time. For example, a file may have been first published five years ago but updated five minutes ago. BLIS understands the difference! If absent the year will be defined by modsecs. The year should be just the four digit year (2024). The data is more flexible but should include four digit year (April 12, 2024).

The author element is recommended, especially if it's someone other than the site editor—so credit can be given. Here are some examples:

• 2019 / edited: Dec 19 2024 (author is assumed to be the site editor)
• Lewis Carroll 1865 / edited: Jan 19 2025 (original book publication year)
• Albert Camus 1947 / edited: Jul 19 2007 (book review uses author, not reviewer)