express-blogger v0.2.2

Express Blogger

A markdown based, git managed, express run, responsive blogging engine; blogging for node.js hackers.

Get a fully customizable blog deployed in minutes using git source control and Heroku.

Getting Started

Clone this repository

For a quick install, clone this repository using git clone https://github.com/sojournerc/express-blogger.git my-blog/ - to use within an existing app (without the supplied app.js file) run npm install express-blogger

Install grunt-cli:

Follow this guide to get up and running with Grunt.

Run the application for local development

The following default command will start the express server, compile less, intitialize the blogging engine, and watch for changes in .js and .hbs files to automatically restart the server.

grunt

Visit localhost:5000 to view your blog

Settings

Settings for the blogging engine may be configured in app.js.

The site section is particularly important, as it is used to configure the urls and blog information in rss.xml.

Here are the defaults:

ADD BASEPATH

    new Blogger({
      file_ext: '.md',
      summary_length: 500,
      article_path: 'articles',
      date_pattern: 'dd MMM, YYYY', // see /lib/format-date.js for options 
      rss_out: 'public/rss.xml',
      site: {
        blog_name: 'An Express Blogger Site',
        blog_description: 'Blog in node.js with express in minutes - without a database',
        blog_url: 'http://your-url-here.com',
        blog_category: ''
      }
    }).init(app);

Customize

Style

/public/css/main.css is compiled from LESS source files in /less:

less
├── color.less
├── frameless.less
├── layout.less
├── main.less
└── text.less

Files in the less directory are named according to their function. frameless.less is used for a column-based responsive layout defined in layout.less.

When running your local server with grunt, changes to less files will automatically re-compile to /public/css/main.css

Layout

Layouts are defined in /views:

views
├── article.hbs
├── category.hbs
├── home.hbs
└── layouts
    └── index.hbs

index.hbs is the main layout containing the navigation column, external links, header, and footer. Update this file to point towards your social media urls, rss feed, etc. All .svg icons in /svgs are available within templates by inserting {{{icon "{file-name}"}}}.

Direct children of views occupy the {{{body}}} tag within index.html. They are used as indicated by the file name.

Writing a Post

Run

grunt post

Follow the prompts for title and category. The file will open in your default markdown text editor.

All articles are located in /articles. Each file must have a header containing at least title and date in yaml format followed by an empty line:

title: {title}
category: {category}
date: {date}

Posts with the same category will be displayed together by navigating to http://{host}/{category}. Categories are automatically added to the navigation bar.

Express Blogger parses markdown and converts it to HTML for display.

<pre> tags are also colored using pretty print for nice readable code snippets. Indent twice after an empty line or use "`" to denote code.

Learn more about markdown..

Commit your new article:

git add . 
git commit -m 'your message here'

and push it to your production server

Deploy to Heroku

This package includes a Procfile which will start the application when deployed to a Heroku dyno. Follow this guide to setup a node application.

###Check it out, you're ready to blog!

###Thanks to:

toto a ruby blogging engine by which this was inspired. frameless for providing the em based columns and the wonderful node.js community providing these awesome tools.

###license

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2014 chris **** at **** christopher-meyer.me

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.