UofT Weblogging Club Website

Design Principles

• Should be effectively free to host!

  • Prefer Static hosting vs Dynamic
  • Prefer Github Actions vs a dedicated server
  • Everything should be roughly portable

• Prefer complexity in the build process vs complexity in the output

  • No JS!
  • No third party frontend dependencies! (JS, CSS packs, fonts)
  • Severely limit asset size

• Aggressively compatible

  • Should be usable on any reasonable screen size
  • Nintendo 3DS browser support
  • The site can be optimised for laptop/desktop, but must be usable everywhere

Development

To add a member

1. Fork + locally clone the repository.
2. Copy the example file located at _members/example.md and rename it to <your domain>.md.
3. Read the data fields and change the entries. You can use existing entries as examples. If you do not need an optional field, remove it (for example, if you do not have an RSS feed, remove the feed: line entirely).
4. Open a PR.

To add an announcement

Create a markdown file in _posts following YYYY-MM-DD-title.md. YAML frontmatter should be similar to all other posts.

To run a dev copy

Manually

1. Install Ruby and Bundle

./runlocal.sh

This should autoinstall the bundle gems and run all needed scripts to properly render the site.

With Docker

If you have Docker set up on your system, you can run docker-compose up [-d] (include the -d flag to run in background). This will build the Docker image, including dependencies, and run the site at localhost:4000.

To deploy

Deployment is automatic on commit. If any further dependancies/plugins are added (ideally using bundle add) make sure to add it to the Gemfile since they are installed at runtime in the Github Actions pipeline.

Automatic commits

The Actions pipeline from rsscombine pushes an updated RSS feed which triggers a site rebuild on every meaningful feed update (aka anything but "last updated"). This is used to generate feed previews on the website and host the full version on neocities under /feed.xml.