About this Blog

9 May 2013 nodejs node javascript

This blog is powered by Node Blogger, a small blogging platform for Node.js that I created out of my frustrations with WordPress's bloatedness and never-ending updates. Below is a detailed documantion on how to create your own blog using Node Blogger.

Installation

First you need to download the repo

git clone https://github.com/qawemlilo/node-blogger.git

Then install dependencies

cd node-blogger && npm install

After installing dependencies, link the bin scripts to access them via the commandline

npm link

Now you need to set up the basic configs for your blog. This process will update config.json with your data.

setupblog

Note: If this command doesn't work it means that npm linking did not work. Run the script directly: node bin/setupblog.

How it works

Node Blogger is super easy to use once you have installed it as shown above. When you create a new post, the data is logged in posts.json, which is our pseudo-database.

Create a new post from the commandline:

newpost

# prompt
Title: My NodeJS adventures
Categories: node.js, javascript
Date:

Note: If this command doesn't work run the script directly: node bin/newpost.

Title: (String) - title of your new post (required)
Categories: (String - csv) - categories for your post (optional, defaults to uncategorised)
Date: (Int - millisecs) - publishing date (optional, defaults to current time)

A new markdown file is created with some placeholding text. You can find that file in the posts directory, use it to write your post.

After you have finished writing your post in markdown format, compile it to html by running the compile command.

compile

Note: If this command doesn't work run the script directly: node bin/compile.

Awesome! Now let's fire up the server.

node server.js

That's it, your blog in now up and running!

Dependencies

EJS - for templating
markdown-js - for parsing markdown files.
connect - for serving static files for the template
rss - blog rss feed

Customisation

You can customise your blog by editing files in the template directory. Node blogger uses EJS for templating, template/index.ejs holds the template for the home page and template/post.ejs holds the template for posts.

Routing

The routes.js file contains the connect middleware for handling http requests.

Commands

setupblog - (bin/setupblog) the setupblog command sets up configuration for a new blog
newpost - (bin/newpost) the newpost command creates the markdown file that will contain the new post. It also logs the new post in posts.json, our pseudo-database.
compile - (bin/compile) the compile command generates the html files that are served by our http server. This command is intelligent because it only compiles files that have been modified or are new. If you modify any of the templates it will also know this and make changes accordingly when you compile.

Server

server.js contains our http server which makes our blog posts available and accessible via a browser.

Contributing

Fork and send me a pull request. Do not develop on the master branch.

For bugs and tweaks create new branch prefixed by hotfix-.
For new features create a new branch prefixed by feature-.

Credits

Node blogger was inspired by this post on http://tutorialzine.com.

License

(MIT License)

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.