manpageblog is a small, lightweight blog engine written in Python and offers several advantages in a look of a man page (Unix like manual page). Firstly, it provides simplicity and ease of use, making it accessible even for users with limited technical knowledge. The lightweight nature ensures quick installation and minimal resource consumption, making it suitable for various hosting environments. No database is needed at all.
Python's readability and straightforward syntax make the blog engine easy to customize and extend, allowing users to tailor it to their specific needs. Additionally, being Python-based means leveraging a vast ecosystem of libraries and frameworks, enhancing the blog's functionality without unnecessary complexity. Posts and pages are written in Markdown or HTML while the blog engine generates the whole website. While using only flat files, this offers great possibilities in maintaining the content. Given this approach, you can manage your whole blog in git.
The lightweight nature also contributes to faster loading times, improving user experience and search engine rankings. Overall, a small, lightweight blog engine in Python combines simplicity, flexibility, and efficiency, making it an ideal choice for those prioritizing a streamlined and customizable blogging experience.
To support this small and lightweight expression of the blog engine the default theme represents a man page (manual page or also known as handbook) design which provides all needed information in a simple document.
manpageblog is a pretty easy, slim and straight forward tool. After checking out this repository it is enough to simply run the following command:
$> ./manpageblog
This command directly creates an example blog within the subdirectory docroot by the given example content from content.
Adding and modifying content is only done within the content directory. This approach makes it easy to obtain the content for the blog from a git repository. All content is provided by flat files like .md (Markdown) and/or .html.
manpageblog supports the following options:
| Option | Example | Description |
|---|---|---|
| -c | -c gyptazy.conf | Defines a config file for a specific blog |
| -h | --help | Prints the help page |
By creating multiple config files and adjusting them to dedicated output directories (and if needed templates & assets), this provides a multi blog setup.
The configuration file (default blog.conf) provides the following configuration files. You may adjust them to your personal needs:
| Option | Example | Description |
|---|---|---|
| name | manpageblog | Defines the first part of the title (and HTML title) |
| subtitle | a small and lightweight blog engine. | Defines the second part of the title (and HTML title) |
| description | This is the blog of manpageblog where you can find more information | Defines the HTML meta descriptions (for searchengines) |
| keywords | manpageblog, simple, easy, lightweight, blog engine | Keywords and tags as a comma separated list |
| keywords_show | meta or html |
Meta: Keywords will only be used for meta section. If html a tag section will be created |
| robots | noindex,nofollow or index,follow |
Defines if a page should be indexed by search engines (can be set for each site) |
| author | admin | A default name for the author of blog posts |
| copyright | manpageblog | name of a copyright holder |
| preview_words | 150 (default) | How many words should be displayed within the blog index page |
| logo_site | https://cdn.gyptazy.ch/images/manpageblog.jpg | URL to a default site logo (e.g. used for RSS) |
| logo_favicon | https://cdn.gyptazy.ch/images/manpageblog.jpg | URL to a favicon image |
| logo_apple_touch | https://cdn.gyptazy.ch/images/manpageblog.jpg | URL to an image for Apple Touch Icon (Webapp) |
| Option | Example | Description |
|---|---|---|
| mastodon | https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/@manpageblog | Link to Mastodon profile |
| @manpageblog | Twitter profile handle | |
| github | https://github.com/manpageblog | Link to GitHub profile |
| Option | Example | Description |
|---|---|---|
| image_width | 800 | Image width within the OG preview |
| image_height | 375 | Image height within the OG preview |
| Option | Example | Description |
|---|---|---|
| site_url | http://localhost:8000 | URI (site url) where this blog is hosted |
| base_path | None | Path to the blog (subdirectory, if not in docroot) |
| assets_path | _assets | Path to the manpageblog assets |
| template_path | _templates | Path to the manpageblog assets |
| output_path | docroot | Output path to the generated blog |
| theme | light | Defines the theme to use |
Within each website element or blog post, a custom title, meta description and an Open Graph image URL can be defined. This ones should be defined as comments which will re replaced and integrate during the site creation by the blog engine.
<!-- title: manpageblog released in version 1.0 -->
<!-- meta_description: Initial release of manpageblog 1.0. A simple and static blog generator in manpage design written in Python. -->
<!-- image_url: https://cdn.gyptazy.ch/manpageblog.jpg -->
manpageblog finally got its first release. With version 1.0 a public release is now present.
A small, lightweight blog engine written in Python and offers several advantages in a look
of a man page (Unix like manual page).
| Option | Example | Description |
|---|---|---|
| title: | manpageblog released in version 1.0 | HTML & OG title |
| meta_description: | Initial release of manpageblog 1.0. A simple and static blog generator in manpage design written in Python. | HTML & OG description |
| image_url: | https://cdn.gyptazy.ch/manpageblog.jpg | Path to an image file for Open Graph |
To give this just a short test you can just run the following commands:
git clone https://github.com/gyptazy/manpageblog.git
cd manpageblog
./manpageblog
cd docroot
python3 -m http.server
Afterwards, just open your browser and visit http://localhost:8000. That's it!
Another possibility to test manpageblog is given by container images. Where you can just rebuild the image by the given Dockerfile or by using a ready to use image.
The fastest way results in using the ready to use image with the following commands:
docker pull cnt-reg.gyptazy.ch/gyptazy/manpageblog:1.2
docker run -d --name manpageblog12 -p 8080:80 cnt-reg.gyptazy.ch/gyptazy/manpageblog:1.2
# Use service on port tcp/8080
curl localhost:8080
A live demo of a running manpageblog instance can be found here:
https://manpageblog.org
If you are using manpageblog you may add your website, blog or site here to share the usage and experience with other users. Of course, only if you like.
Instances:
| Website | User | Description |
|---|---|---|
| https://manpageblog.org | @gyptazy | manpageblog project website |
| https://gyptazy.ch | @gyptazy | DevOps, coding, cloud and open-source in a geeky way. Find out more about Ansible, Kubernetes, Prometheus and other fancy tools. You see code - I see bugs! |
| https://boxybsd.com | BoxyBSD | BoxyBSD is a destination for free BSD-focused solutions and services for the community. |
Like probably the most ones I started with Wordpress which is a pretty cool but also a very bloated software for a personal blog. Running such a software requires multiple application with different dependencies, continuous updates and more resources on the system to serve the whole content. Creating additional backups of the docroot and the database require additional time and efforts. All of this is not really necessary when the content is more or less static and comments are deactivated or not used. A flat file approach provides the optional possibility to run and keep everything in git. Generated HTML pages can easily be served even on low resource systems. While this way of blogging mostly targets tech-enthusiasts that are already working on Unix-like systems the idea was to provide a blog engine in a layout and theming of a Unix-like man page (manual page). Man pages always align to the same formatting based on troff which make man pages look always the same. While man pages provide information of a cli command the idea was to adapt this to a blog. A blog also provides information and especially when serving tech related content it makes much sense to provide it in a similar way. This is the story of how manpageblog was born.
manpageblog
This is free and open source software. You can use, copy, modify,
merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of it,
under the terms of the MIT License.
This software is provided "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, express or implied. See the MIT License for details.
This repository contains the source code of an example website containing two static blogs and a few static pages. The website can be generated by running manpageblog. That's it!
So go ahead, fork this repository, replace the content with your own, and generate your static website. It's that simple!
You are free to copy, use, and modify this project for your blog or website, so go ahead and fork this repository and make it your own project. Change the layout if you wish to, improve the stylesheet to suit your taste, enhance manpageblog if you need to, and develop your website/blog just the way you want it.
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