Writ-CMS

The timeless SSG + CMS, in the making.

Contents

• The idea
• Example websites
• Usage
• Installation
• Manual
• Development

The idea

When I'm writing a blog post, I want to deal with the least amount of software complexity.

• I should be able to compose freeform html, rich text and markdown
• I should be able to just use GUI from start to end
• I should be able to organize categories, posts and pages using folders and text files
• I should get automated index pages, pagination, sitemap, rss, search etc. without touching code
• I should be able to easily customize it
• I should be able to use it without remembering much
• And, everyone also should be able to do all of those.

Example websites

• Writ (source: https://github.com/scriptype/writ)
• Reads Feed (source: https://github.com/scriptype/feed)
• Upstairs is boiling (source: https://github.com/upstairsisboiling/upstairsisboiling.github.io)

Usage

1) Name your site

mkdir "All about trees"
cd "All about trees"

2) Create a post

echo "Pines are nice" > "Hello world.txt"

3) Preview and edit

writ start

Installation

npm install -g scriptype/writ-cms

Manual

Entry formats

• Accepted text file extensions: .txt, .md, .markdown, .hbs, .html.

Categories

1. Create a folder

Folder name can be human readable and it will be used as the display name.

Posts

Create a new uncategorized post:

1. Create a text file

Create a categorized post:

1. Go to a category folder
2. Create a text file inside the folder

Foldered posts

If you need to refer/embed static assets, such as photos or demo iframes, within the post, the easiest way is to have a folder for everything the post needs, including the post itself.

Create a foldered post:

1. Create a folder
2. Inside the folder, create a text file named "post". e.g post.md, post.txt

Human readable name of the folder will be the post title.

A post file can look like this:

My new post starts like this.

And it ends like this.

You can also add metadata like this in the beginning of a post file

---
type: text
date: 2023-01-05, 01:57
tags: bananas, books
musiclist:
 - Your favorite artist - A song
---
My new post starts like this.

And it ends like this.

"musiclist" is displayed at the end of the post when it's rendered.

Subpages

1. Create a folder named "pages"
2. Create a text file inside the folder

Foldered subpages

Just like with foldered posts, foldered subpages is the easiest way to manage local assets.

1. Create a folder inside the "pages" directory
2. Inside the folder, create a text file named "page". e.g. page.txt, page.md, page.html

You can use a different folder for pages by adding this to settings.json:

"pagesDirectory": "my-different-pages-folder"

Static assets

1. Create a folder named "assets"
2. Put any static assets into this folder

You can use a different folder for assets by adding this to settings.json:

"assetsDirectory": "my-different-assets-folder"

Development

Clone writ-cms by running:

git clone [email protected]:scriptype/writ-cms.git

Then set it up:

cd writ-cms
npm install

# Sets up the git hooks
npm run hookup

# Recommended for being able to quickly test things in any directory
npm i -g .