chalk-blog

A simple CLI to create a statically hostable blog

Example

• Live Example
• Source Repo

Installation

npm i chalk-blog -g

Usage

CLI

# chalk init <repoUrl>
#   create a new blog in the current dir
#
# - inits git repo
# - sets up git remote to <repoUrl>
# - copies blog skeleton files
# - does initial commit

chalk init <url>


# chalk new <...name>
#   create a new post
#
# - creates a md file
# - prepopulates <name> and current date as headers
# - opens md file in default .md editor

chalk new First Post


# chalk publish
#   publish any local changes
#
# - compiles md files to HTML
# - updates index.html with latest post synopses
# - commits compiled files to git
# - pushes to remote master

chalk publish

/meta/templates

Edit these in order to adjust the layout of your blog. Each template is provided with the following variables which you can embed in your templates via handlebars syntax ({{varName}}). If you edit any of your templates, chalk publish to update your generated html files.

• index.html - homepage, lists most recent posts in descending order

  • items - list of the most recent posts - uses item.html template
  • next - link to next page (more recent posts) - uses next.html template
  • prev - link to previous page (older posts) - uses prev.html template

• item.html - synopsis block of most recent post, listed on homepage

  • title - contents of the first h1 in the post (prepopulated with name provided during chalk new)
  • date - contents of the first h2 in the post (prepopulated with current date during chalk new)
  • firstP - contents of the first p in the post
  • fileName - standardized filename so that you can link to the full post

• next.html - link to next page/post

  • url - url of next item
  • text - text to display in next link

• prev.html - link to prev page/post

  • url - url of prev item
  • text - text to display in prev link

• post.html - full blog post content

  • title - contents of the first h1 in the post (prepopulated with name provided during chalk new)
  • body - full body contents of the post
  • next - link to next post (more recent) - uses next.html template
  • prev - link to prev post (older) - uses prev.html template

/style.css

By default, all template files will use style.css for styling. Alter this file to adjust the look and feel of your blog.

/meta/order.json

order.json is an array of post titles. chalk new will automatically insert new posts at the end of the array. If you ever desire to alter the order of your posts, simply adjust the ordering in order.json and chalk publish.

If you would like a post to be outside of the linked chain of posts (such as an About page you want to link in the page header/footer), remove the entry from order.json. chalk publish will still detect and compile the md file, it just won't link to any "previous" or "next" posts.

/meta/rss.json

RSS is automatically generated for you during chalk publish. You can edit rss.json to provide a title, description, and urls for your feed.

/meta/mds

This is where your created posts will live in markdown format. If you ever wish to edit a previous posts, alter the md file and chalk publish. Do not edit the generated html file directly, as a chalk publish will overwrite any manual changes not present in the markdown or template files.