Welcome to my new blog! I haven't imported my [old blog posts](http://csiew.github.io/blog) to this new one. This new blog uses a successor to my static site generator script [md2magic](http://github.com/csiew/md2magic) to help with importing and indexing posts.

The new script is also written in Python. However I am now using JSON files for its configuration and post manifest. This was inspired by my work on [BiscuitWM](http://github.com/csiew/biscuitwm) which also uses a JSON file for configuration.

You can view the script in all its glory/horror on the [repository](http://github.com/csiew/website) of this site (under the name [*statgen.py*](https://github.com/csiew/website/blob/master/statgen.py) in the root directory). I will perhaps create a separate repository for this script once it has reached a point of maturity.

Unlike md2magic, it is not responsible for converting markdown files into HTML. Like I mentioned earlier, it's now more of an indexing tool that allows your site to have a readily-available list of your posts with some metadata.


An experiment in static site generators

A new blog, a new static site generator

As of late, I've been attempting some web development projects. I found a common problem with starting several new projects across different frameworks and runtimes is that I've been constantly looking up their docs online or my own notes on setting new projects up.

I decided it was finally time to start doing a little automation with shell scripts.

The first runtime-framework combination I'm working with is Node and Express. The script asks for the project name so that it could create a directory in my usual projects directory. It then goes through the motions of running the standard `npm` or `yarn` project initialisation. It also installs the `nodemon` package so that Node could automatically restart the app whenever I make a change.

It works great for my standard Express backend project setup. However I plan on adding flags so that it could be more convenient to toggle adding additional packages like `nodemon`. Flags could play a larger role in the future when I automate the setup process for React and Vue projects (i.e. adding a router package, or the Material UI or Bootstrap packages).

I'm also figuring out a frontend or interface to conveniently toggle various options in a single *view* rather than fiddling with flags and command line parameters. An `ncurses` text user interface was my initial choice, but I'm currently experimenting with an Electron app that would call the script and plug in the necessary flags.

You can take a look at the initial script on [GitHub](https://github.com/csiew/boilerplate_generators). The script is currently designed for use on Debian-based Linux distributions. Support for macOS (and maybe Windows) will come a little later.


An experiment in boilerplates and templates

Building a boilerplate factory

A podcast app that lives in your terminal. It stores indexes of your podcast subscriptions and episode data in JSON files. It's written in Python and uses the pygame library for audio streaming functionality. Limitations with pygame and cross-platform compatibiltiy (Linux and macOS) led me to start working on a web-based podcast client (which was initially codenamed Podzol).


Podcasts in your terminal

Podzol

A minimalist X11 window manager for Linux/Unix systems written in Python. It's largely an experimental project. It's based on [TinyWM](https://github.com/mackstann/tinywm) and [xpywm](https://github.com/h-ohsaki/xpywm).


Experimental window manager based on the Python version of TinyWM

BiscuitWM

A static site generator written in Python. Ideal for blogs. Work on a rewrite had been on-and-off until 2020.


python

A new blog, a new static site generator

Building a boilerplate factory

Podzol

BiscuitWM

md2magic