• how do i use this thing
  • how to write the frontmatter
• what does it actually do?
• template stuff (aka theming)
• how do i install it
• the config file
• RAQ (rarely asked questions)

bloggy is a little markdown -> html converter. it turns your .md files into little blog posts while also validating your markdown, making sure it isn't borked.

how do i use this thing

1. write a markdown file with some frontmatter at the top
2. run bloggy [file].md
3. and boom, it spits out a shiny .html file in your output folder

how to write the frontmatter

like this :

---
title: hello world!
description: this is the best post you will ever read
color: #72d572
---

here is my post!!! i wrote things!! isnt this so cool!

- and yes
- it supports lists

> and other markdown stuff

`(most of the time)`

just slap some --- around the metadata and give it:

• a title
• a description
• a color

then the rest is just your blog content.

what does it actually do?

behind the scenes it does this:

• reads your markdown file
• extracts the frontmatter at the top
• validates your markdown (spits out warns and errors, still makes the html file though)
• parses it with marked
• injects it into a template you provide
• replaces tags like {{! title }} in the template with the actual data
• saves the final HTML into the output folder

template stuff (aka theming)

you provide a template.html and bloggy will lovingly fill in the blanks for you. it looks for these magic placeholder tags:

| tag | what it does | |----------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | {{! title }} | gets replaced with the post's title | | {{! description }} | the posts description, most useful for seo tags | | {{! color }} | the post's accent color (you can use it as the page's theme-color for seo as well) | | {{! content }} | this is where the html-ified markdown goes | | {{! date }} | gets replaced by the current date (you can format it too, e.g. {{! date('DD/MM/YYYY') }}) | | {{! time }} | gets replaced by the current time (also format-friendly, e.g. {{! time('hh:mm A') }}) | | {{! include('path/to/file.html/css/js') }} | pulls in other templates, partials, headers, footers, css styles, etc |

tip: use the color to theme your post dynamically!
note: you can still use the old tag syntax for that tags that already existed at that time (eg. for title), however you should upgrade.
note: the old tag syntax was <!-- [BLOGGY::[TAG] --> which was tedious to type out, so it was replaced with {{! [tag] }}

how do i install it

you can clone this repo:

git clone https://github.com/TheUnium/bloggy.git

then simple link it :

npm link

orrr..... you can build it yourself, using bun:

bun run build

after either method, you can just run it:

bloggy --init my-blog

it's pretty simple:

npm install -g bloggy-md

then just run:

bloggy --init my-blog

after which you can start writing markdown!

the config file

bloggy will look for a config.yaml for custom settings, here is the default one that is generated with the init flag :

bloggy:
  version: "2.0.1"

post:
  title: "Unnamed Post"
  description: "No description provided... so sad... ⏳⏳⏳"
  color: "#72d572"

paths:
  template: "path/to/template.html"
  template_dir: "path/to/templates/folder"
  output_dir: "path/to/dist/folder"

rules:
  allowRawHtml: false
  maxParagraphLength: 500
  requireImageAlts: true
  allowConsecutiveHeaders: false
  maxHeaderDepth: 4
  requireListSpacing: true
  requireTableSeparators: true

validation:
  enabled: true
  errors: true
  warns: true

completely optional. bloggy has defaults, but you can override them here if you're feeling fancy.

RAQ (rarely asked questions)

Q: why does this exist?
A: i wanted to make a blog from my site and was too lazy to setup a static site generator

Q: can it make me a sandwich?
A: sometimes. depends on your template i guess?

Q: can i make a blog with this?
A: yes, up to you though. it would be better if you use a more well known static site generator, but this might be fun to tinker with :)

attribution

bloggy was created by unium and is under the MIT license. if you fork, modify, or use this project as the basis for your own work, please include a visible credit to the original author :D

example attribution:

Based on bloggy by unium.