Usage

Creating a new post

Your skeleton blog already has a post called first/. You can edit that post, or create a new one with the command:

$ nb new "Hello, World!"

(Note that you always need to run the nb command from inside your weblog directory.)

This will create a new directory called hello_world/, with the following structure:

posts/hello_world/
posts/hello_world/index.mkd
posts/hello_world/img/
posts/hello_world/css/
posts/hello_world/js/

If you have the EDITOR environment set, nefelibata will automatically open your editor to edit index.mkd. You can place any custom CSS, Javascript or images in the corresponding directories, or any other extra files in the hello_world/ directory.

You’ll notice that the index.mkd file has headers and a body. The file itself is actually stored as an email, using the RFC 5322 format. The most important headers are:

  • subject: this is the title of your post.

  • summary: this is a one-line summary of your post.

  • keywords: a comma-separated list of keywords for tags.

Additionally, once the post is published a date header will be added. If the post is announced to Twitter/Mastodon/etc. a corresponding header (eg, mastodon-url) will also be added.

If you want to announce your post to a custom social network you can either override the default announcers by using the announce-on header, or add an extra announcer by using the announce-on-extra header. Similarly, if you want to skip a default announcer you can use the announce-on-skip header.

Building the weblog

To build your weblog, simply run:

$ nb build

This will convert the Markdown files to HTML and build the weblog, with pages for archives and tags as well. Later, once posts have been announced to social networks, this command will also collect replies and store them locally.

Previewing the weblog

To preview your weblog, simply run:

$ nb preview

This will run an HTTP server on port 8000. Open http://localhost:8000/ on your browser so you can preview your changes.

Publishing the weblog

Finally, you can publish your weblog with the command:

$ nb publish

This will upload the weblog using any configured publishers (like S3), and announce new posts to social networks.