behind the scenes

here’s the techy stuff propping up the blog, will keep it updated as things change.

[last updated 04-02-25]

• platform: publii
  • publii is like an offline open-source wordpress-lite – similar posts vs pages dichotomy, navbar configuration, and theming. pretty standard blogging fare, i’d imagine, but wordpress is still the king in that space (even if it’s a mad king).
  • most notably, publii is a static-site generator, meaning it builds together a ton of html pages that link together instead of active scripts that fetch database rows and spit them out on the page on the fly. this drastically reduces complexity in terms of hosting needs.
  • they offer windows, macos, and linux apps. there is no web-hosted version, which is ironic as the apps are electron containers, or mobile app, so that means no on-the-go admin access from mobile or a friend’s computer or something. fine for my needs and wants although i imagine it could be significant friction for some. i use the app on windows and macos both and just sync via dropbox, has been flawless so far.
  • other handy feature is direct upload to where you wanna host so i just yap away and hit sync and boom, you’re reading these words.
• theme: custom
  • i made it! publii uses handlebars for templating and otherwise was pretty straightforward html/js/css. i am trying to keep the weight down, like no js libraries. return to tradition etc etc.
  • i started building it in a way so others could use it too before giving up and hardcoding my shit into it, but it might be fun to go back and wrap it up nicely and throw it up on github for funsies.
• comments: kayinnasaki/bsky-comments
  • i use kayin’s bluesky comments script. i searched around for a while and looked at others’ scripts but they all had different things that rubbed me the wrong way. i finally found kayin’s blog, really liked their implementation, and DMed them on bluesky to ask permission to grab the js. little did i know it was already on github! ended up contributing back to it to with the auto-discovery and hopefully more.
  • i did first try out commento and actually had it fully running, but i just immediately got soured by forcing people to make their own accounts just for my blog, and then i’d have to deal with spam and moderation and yadda yadda. nah.
  • i’ve used disqus in the past but they suck now. not even gonna link it.
• host: linode
  • i’ve had a box on linode for the past like 11 years, just some kind of ubuntu. i do bare minimum management on it but it’s where i serve all my web shit.
  • changing somewhat soon! – i have plans for home server stuff and i intend to kill the linode and migrate it all in-house. serve my own web stuff. part of my general goal to rely less on cloud shit for stuff that’s important to me.

and that’s really it! simple and super effective, love to see it.