A pointer for improvements about htmly

[ctuxboy]

@JPLeRouzic thanks for the compliments.
I the past i was a Wordpress Specialist, but stoppped as 'proffesional' webdesigner a few times ago (burn-out), now i do webdesign and small webdev as hobby.
Starting this blog a month ago. I was started building my own theme, but find this existing HTMLy-theme really nice, why reinvent the wheel when it already exists 😉
So for testing, i ported the theme to Bludit, and made yesterday the decision change my blog to this cms (Bludit), so in the meantime change my HTMLy blog to Bludit. The ported theme functions for 90%, at this moment, it's a work in progress.
Yes, i like HTMLy for blogging very mutch, it works very efficient, but the lack of updates made me decide switch to Bludit.
Okay, Bludit is not perfect, it is build as multipurpose-cms, but made a plugin for Bludit is relative easy, so it is possible for a basic-developer like me, made extra functionality in a relative simple way, for my own requirements, and it has a support-forum.
Kirby is a think a better choice, but not free 😕

[oleteacher]

"it's not its competition." ???

I never said nor do I think this is a competition. Simply trying to find a replacement solution for students.

[AutomationMan808]

Yes it's a text file you can set someone up as a writer etc.. They can then only see and edit their own content.

[JPLeRouzic]

HTMLy does not do multi-author for a reason, it would mean implementing more database-like functions, so it would defeat the purpose of a simple flat file CMS.

A hack could be to manage access of authors to the database through the login function and forbid more than one author to access HTMLy at the same time.
Then basically one "only" have to:

• create a new page like edit-profile.html.php, but for user management, let say: user-management.html.php.
• create the wiring for a new entry in the admin menu pointing to this new page
• create functions to:
  • create a new user (doing what we do manually)
  • edit an existing user
  • deleting an existing user

[ctuxboy]

Dear friends, Like you I have been frustrated by the lack of activity in HTMLy since 5/6 years. Like you I have maintained an HTMLy instance, and modify it to introduce features and keep with the demands of the hard master: Google. I provide here my code, therefore complying with HTMLy's license.

Coralie (my code) enables a separation of infrastructure, features and views. For example it is possible to change of theme on the fly. The code is much cleaner than in HTMLy (at least that is what static analysis tells).

Yet Coralie is not a replacement for HTMLy, not competition. I hope it will enable a new trend of innovation here.

Nice work!
I like HTMLy, but i'm afraid about there are no updates (anymore).
The lack of updates, it pushed me to another cms (Bludit), but i hope that people like you build a 'fork' from HTMLy, so it can grow and hope more activity.
I'm looking to your project, is it possible installing as test? Is there a tutorial how install your Colarie cms?

[JPLeRouzic]

Thanks for the kind words.
As written above I don't foresee "Coralie" to compete with any flat file PHP CMS, I am a single person so for me it's not possible to compete with open source PHP projects that are backed by a SME (like Wordpress for example).

"Coralie" is here to show what could be done in HTMLy in terms of modern coding style (I use PHPstan, a static analyser), easier maintenance and expansion. I will never make an installer or make "Coralie" compatible with the myriad of hosting environments. If there were a community of people it would be different, but a large community does not exist for HTMLy despite its 9 years existence, so the odds it happens for Coralie are slim.

I guess what would make a difference would be many plugins/themes and good documentation. Alas this means lot of work for at least 5-10 full time people.

Yet I plan to make "Coralie" compatible with some Wordpress themes. What I mean is enabling people to drop a Wordpress theme in the theme folder, declare it in config and that is all, it would work. Another feature would be to be able to design and modify presentation on the fly like in Wordpress (though it's not that easy on Wordpress). In general hijacking Wordpress features and resources could make a real difference for people.

About installing Coralie, I just uploaded it to csrf. and it worked out of the box without needing to install anything. In contrast it seems people (including myself) can't install recent HTMLy on Lima City because of a bug recently introduced in HTMLy session management.

Thank you again for your warm words and happy new year 2023!

[ctuxboy]

Oh, you do a lot of work. Hoped there was someone helped @danpros for develop and maintenance HTMLy, so keeps existing. When starting my blog in december 2022, i doubt HTMLy or Bludit.
HTMLy is really good for blogging and very efficient.
But Bludit has an active community and some plugins, so now i think change to Bludit, if there now activity/maintenance anymore for HTMLy.
Here my (beginning) blog in HTMLy https://gewoonsimpel.be/
and a temporary version with Bludit https://dev.gewoonsimpel.be/
I used the same theme, i mean, rebuild the HTMLy-theme to Bludit, so i can compare Bludit with HTMLy.
(sorry for my poor english)

[JPLeRouzic]

You have a nice blog!

I checked Bludit on Google trends, it seems on par with HTMLy.
I also checked Bludit with an online static code analyser. It looks perhaps a bit more mature than HTMLy but not that much.
HTMLy:

Bludit:

Kirby has a test suite which makes it very professional (it can automatically detect regressions or bugs). This could be a nice addition to HTMLy.
Kirby has much more notoriety than HTMLy or Bludit.

[AutomationMan808]

I played with Bludit and found HTMLy better for SEO purposes and easier to customize.

Rick

[ctuxboy]

i understand, both cms-systems has its pro's en contra's.
Bludit has also no archive-page/plugin. A friend build a plugin yesterday in a evening.
But i'm also interesting in HTMLy.

[oleteacher]

Very nice work @JPLeRouzic .

Been using HTMLY for student classroom blogs for few years and have loved it. Lack of dev is concerning so looking for a similar flat-file CMS.

Will be keeping an eye on your release:)

[JPLeRouzic]

Thank you so much Susan for your kind words!

To have a large community, it seems to me it's important:

• To have a code base which is easy to understand and easy to tinker with.
• To have plugins to enable someone to make small modifications that are not impacted by an upgrade of the core code and which are relatively safe as they call an internal API and can't directly access content or modify core features.

However this is not enough, as for example Bludit has all that yet it is not well known. I love that even Bludit core features call their API.

On the contrary the code base for Wordpress is a nightmare. There is no formal process to validate plugins. Yet a lot of people love Wordpress (40% of Web domains use it) because there are so many themes and presentation could be (not so easily) changed from the admin menu.

What feature seems important for you?

[oleteacher]

You are most welcome JP.

"What feature seems important for you?"

• Easy admin
• Simple themes
• Easy to tinker with

Like my husband says about new cars: can no longer work on them without a computer science degree. He misses the old days when an automobile only needs four things. Oil, gasoline, air and a spark to run:)

In other words: keep it simple.

I have a love / hate relationship with WordPress. You can build about any kind (niche) of site, but it too is like a new automobile. Very complex.

In the classroom we cannot use WordPress. No mySQL of any type is allowed on local network. Use to be able to use SQLite but that is now frowned upon. IT department prefers flat-file.

Would love to see HTMLY updated to at least work with PHP 8+ so students could use their blogs in the future. I really like HTMLY but understand the time / energy / funds it takes to maintain.

[JPLeRouzic]

Would love to see HTMLY updated to at least work with PHP 8+ so students could use their blogs in the future.

Coralie works on PHP 8.1 on my web site and also on its demo site here.

Please could you share a few URLs of your and your students blogs, to help me understand what features you and your students are using? If they are not offered today on Coralie (not all HTMLy features are in Coralie) I pledge to add them within a month to Coralie.

[oleteacher]

I will have to try Coralie and see if HTMLY content can be imported.

All student blogs are on a local network and cannot be accessed from the internet.

[JPLeRouzic]

Thanks, but as stated above, Coralie is a pointer to changes that could happen in HTMLy, it's not its competition. Bludit is a real competition.
Anyway content created with HTMLy is compatible with Coralie.
If you want the "listen the article" feature, you need to get a key from responsivevoice and write it in layout.html.php

I just verified on Bludit, post created with HTMLy is correctly displayed on Bludit.

[AutomationMan808]

I look forward to trying Coralie. I love HTMLy but I wanted something more end user friendly for my clients so I tried
Grav. I don't know if it's because I'm self-taught so I could not find a way to edit the layout page to do what I wanted or because the first theme I tried to install ended up with errors but I'm uninstalling Grav now and will be uploading Coralie shortly.

If you have any tips I would appreciate them.

Thank you for your hard work.
Rick

[JPLeRouzic]

Hi Rick,
In Coralie, the themes are under the "view/theme" directory. You can choose it in the configuration menu and change it on the fly.

At the moment there is no internationalization, because I want to do what @raffaellarinaldi asked yesterday: Having a full internationalization, instead of a partial as of today. This is why you can see new small files in the 'view' folder.

In case you want to try things you can access the 'admin' menu of the demo site with 'admin' as login and password.

[vdbhb59]

Coralie sounds good and simple enough for my blogs. I am still using this, but I will try it once on something different in a week or so. Hope, it works for me. I tried the admin interface as you stated, and it does seem to have things working in demo. Although user function (add/remove/maintain/delete etc of another user) is not available. Also update/upgrade function is not available.

[JPLeRouzic]

• "update/upgrade function is not available."
  That's true, I do not want to spend time to test my code on hundred of configurations that I do not use. Coralie was not meant as a substitute to HTMLy, just as a code base derived from HTMLy yet much more modular, easier to debug, easier to maintain, compatible with PHP8.1, without most obvious bugs (there still a lot) so it can run on complicated host architecture like Lima.de.
  If I were a new user I would probably use Bludit or a similar flat file PHP CMS.

• "Although user function (add/remove/maintain/delete etc of another user) is not available."
  I may have miss something but is there user management in HTMLy either?

[JPLeRouzic]

Yes, you can add a user in the text file, like this were there are two users, "admin" and "system":

But the sentence I answered to was :
"Although user function (add/remove/maintain/delete etc of another user) is not available."
There is NO user management in HTMLy.

[AutomationMan808]

Sorry I misunderstood.

[JPLeRouzic]

No problem, don't worry :-)

[vdbhb59]

Yes it's a text file you can set someone up as a writer etc.. They can then only see and edit their own content.

@JPLeRouzic I meant this. Yeah HTMLy does not have it, I just thought it could be done, the way you mentioned a post below.

I hate Bludit, as it is very resource hungry. I love simple stuffs tbvh.