Using Publii to Blog Pt. 1
I've been looking for a blogging platform for a loooooonnnngg time. I was looking for something that met a number of requirements.
- The end result website would be self-hosted.
- Ideally lightweight static HTML pages.
- A simple-ish template(s) that I can hack around.
- Something simple enough for me to understand but with the option to test out and expand my (lack of) webdev skills.
- Not a hosted, server based complex CMS like WordPress, Joomla, etc, etc. Indeed, not necessarily a CMS at all. I'd be quite happy to write directly into markdown files.
- Secure (static HTML kinda helps there)
- Free or low cost...
To this end I've tried;
- Hugo - Managed to get it installed on my desktop. Taught me something about command based apps and the like, using Go and Chocolatey, writing posts in Markdown. But after building a site with a whole 3 pages, it stopped building more pages leaving me with the stunted site at arseburgers.co.uk.
- Hand coded HTML using either complete example sites (see the single HTML page site at https://www.aard.at/) or stealing code snippets from multiple sources. Ultimately, it's just too much work.
- Lichen - A very simple web-based CMS that I managed to get installed but was too shite at server settings to get working properly.
- trying to understand any number "simple" server based CMS whose installation instructions start "git install bollocksCMS and stuff /d /arse". I never even got as far as managing to install these.
Today I read about Publii in a blogpost about simple web stuff.
Publii is a PC (Windows / Mac / Linux) based very simple blogging CMS platform that generates a static HTML site. You can then upload it with an FTP client, or Publii will do that for you.
Publii is free to use, although there's a very limited number of free templates. Paid templates and plug-ins are quite expensive ($30+ for templates and $19+ for the pugins I thought would be worth using) but it looks like I can do most of what I want without those.
This is literally my second post, so I'll post more as I use it more.
