How This Site Works

It’s pretty simple to make a new post or page now. In my editor of choice, I write the page as a markdown file, and Zola takes care of all the repetitive HTML stuff and linking and all that. I can just write and not think about those details.

Then I run the Zola server

zola --root ~/zola_sites/MySite/ serve

When the server is running, I can test it out on Firefox, and I also tend to test it on Chromium here on my desktop. I am much more concerned with doing that when I am tinkering with the CSS or templates.

Next, I run it through the grammar or spelling checker of my choice. God knows both my spelling and grammar are awful. I make changes as I see fit, and I can view it live in the browser. Once I’m happy with it, it’s as simple as using Zola to build it and Rclone to sync it to the server.

zola --root ~/zola_sites/MySite/  build  && rclone sync -c --size-only  -P  ~/zola_sites/MySite/public/ MySite:public_html

To sync it, it is easy peasy. I don’t even have to type it. It only takes about a minute to rebuild and another minute or so to sync everything to my server.

Whenever I do edit the templates, I try to remember to run them through the W3C Markup Validation Service. I like to try to make sure it’s all valid HTML. I do the same in the CSS validator when I modify my style sheets. It’s the best way to assume it will work anywhere. I strive to have valid HTML and css with no errors or warnings from the validator.

I tend to test it out on both my phone and tablet using Firefox and Chrome every so often. Or at least I try to remember to do that.

On the server side of things, it is hosted on a VPS with FreeBSD running. FreeBSD has been my choice for many years. The changes are more sane, and I agree with the license more than Linux’s. I use the Caddy server since that takes care of getting certificates and stuff for me.