bixie <@_@>

Quick infinite scroll webpage generator for media galleries.

Files are content-addressed (renamed to their SHA-256 hash) in the output. Videos autoplay when scrolled into view and pause when scrolled away.

Install

npm i -g bixie

Usage

bixie [options] <source-directory>

Options

| Flag | Default | Description | |------|---------|-------------| | --dist <path> | ./dist | Output directory | | --title <text> | Media Gallery | Page title | | --autoplay <bool> | true | Autoplay videos on scroll | | --muted <bool> | false | Mute videos | | --loop <bool> | true | Loop videos | | --controls <bool> | true | Show video controls | | --per-page <n> | 5 | Items loaded per scroll | | --threshold <n> | 0.5 | Visibility ratio to trigger autoplay (0-1) | | --help | | Show help message |

Examples

# Generate gallery from a folder of memes
bixie ~/Downloads/memes

# Specify output directory and title
bixie --dist ~/www/gallery --title "Robot Files" ~/media/robots

# Muted autoplay (guaranteed to work in all browsers)
bixie --muted ~/media/clips

# Disable autoplay, just show videos with controls
bixie --autoplay false ~/media/clips

Supported Formats

• Images: jpg, png, gif, webp
• Videos: mp4, webm, ogg

Note on Autoplay

Browsers require videos to be muted for autoplay to work without prior user interaction. By default bixie sets --muted false so videos have sound, but autoplay may be blocked by the browser until the user interacts with the page. Use --muted to guarantee autoplay works everywhere.

Output

Running bixie produces a self-contained directory with:

• index.html - the gallery page
• index.json - file metadata
• files/ - content-addressed media files

Serve the output directory with any static file server.

What Is Bixie?

bixie /bik'see/ n. Alternative emoticons used on BIX (the BIX Information eXchange). The most common (smiley) bixie is <@_@>, representing two cartoon eyes and a mouth. These were originally invented in an SF fanzine called APA-L and imported to BIX by one of the earliest users.

(from esr's jargon file)