http://montaigne.io - made this one for myself. Just publishes website from Apple Notes. Every time time I update note on my laptop or iPhone the site is updated automatically.
had the same problem with previous platforms so made this new tool. I think I've road 6 posts in the past month. So hopefully it will help me to write more too.
I need to write a blog post explaining this in more detail.
But basically Notes are shared with public account, then they synced automatically to the apple mini machines in the cloud. Using Apple Script they are exported and saved into DB and then render and published.
Well, there is a fair amount of css wrapped in <style> tags. Not sure I understand the upside of not putting it in a separate file.
Though the look is reasonably pleasant.
Edit: The example blog also loads js, despite the "no javascript" claim. Like: <script src="https://cdn.usefathom.com/script.js" data-site="WKWMFTPV" defer></script>. Perhaps that's not a default thing, but it seems odd to link to an example blog that doesn't match the sales pitch.
Creator here. So it may be a bit pedantic, but yes, there are styles (pure HTML isn't the most pleasant to read) but no external stylesheets.
I ran a bunch of tests when setting it up to see what loads faster and it turns out the <style> tag in the head, with such minimal styles outperformed external stylesheets (even though the browser can cache them). With styles so small once the html page is loaded (at 2-5kb gzipped) the styles are immediate, whereas even if retrieving from browser cache the html needs to load first before it can take effect.
The second bit with Fathom analytics is that users can optionally connect Fathom to their accounts (this is the only analytics tool you can connect since they have a track record of being trustworthy). But yes, it is technically included JS.
Inline CSS has the benefit of not making a second HTTP request, as well as (if I recall correctly) rendering the page styled from the get go, as opposed to once unstyled and once again when the CSS has finished downloading.
One might argue, that inline CSS cannot be cached by browser and are loaded with each HTTP document, thus increasing total download size. And using HTTP/2 making additional requests ain't such a big problem anymore.
All in all I think developers have considered all options and chose the best solution for their particular use case.
Perhaps, though I thought the net benefit of newer http protocols was to make that second request very lightweight. Then it's also cached if they visit a second page on the blog.
CSS is render blocking. The browser will never paint anything on screen until it’s downloaded and parsed in to a css object model.
Unless you’re hyper tuning the page load performance in some specific way I think CSS is usually best served as a separate asset with a very generous cache time.
If the entirety of the CSS is extremely minimal it can make sense to in-line it too. Especially if you can get everything in at under 14kb. (Initial TCP window size)
> Edit: The example blog also loads js, despite the "no javascript" claim. Like: <script src="https://cdn.usefathom.com/script.js" data-site="WKWMFTPV" defer></script>. Perhaps that's not a default thing, but it seems odd to link to an example blog that doesn't match the sales pitch.
Probably safe to turn off, as uBlock Origins and other ad blocking solutions would, depending on your settings. So I guess in a way the site itself works just fine without JS enabled and doesn't require it, but the authors have chosen to add analytics to see who uses their site, then.
Bear Blog users can optionally add Fathom as an analytics tool. It's a fair criticism that this adds JS, but Fathom is arguably the best choice for analytics (maybe Plausible as well).
I use bearblog for my .dev website [1]. It's a one pager and works great for me.
I inject some CSS to make it work for me, i.e. fonts - and simple colors and I removed most of the "extra" pages because I wanted to keep it as a one pager.
It's a great platform and I wish there was a version where I could self host it like `hexo.js`
Thanks for your work herman!
[1] orlie.dev - Currently using it behind Cloudflare!
How is Google treating your website? I run a couple of pure/majority text only websites & I've noticed that Google favors websites with images/videos in them even if they copy your text content.
Not as snappy as I would have expected considering the 5KB pages. Not sure where it comes from but there is a very noticeable delay before the individual blog pages are rendered.
- "No trackers, no javascript, no stylesheets"
- inline js.
- inline stylesheets.
- uses favicon which can be used for tracking.
- not self hosted.
- requires an account to sign up
- "TOS" > "Bear may disclose personally identifiable information under special circumstances, such as to comply with subpoenas or when your actions violate the Terms of Service."
- can't be bothered to indent the html.
- payment system could require real identity.
I suspect what he means is "this is a safe space" in contrast to the open/hostile internet "out there", i.e. there is no nefarious intent. As you point out, this is really mostly virtue signalling (and probably well-meant). The fact that actually there is JS, there are trackable signals, your PII can and will be disclosed etc is sorta beside the point of sites like this.
If an organization or person is selling a product focused on privacy and there is a TOS that focuses on the org or person avoiding liability but lacks documentation or links to resources to help users to lower their liability and increase privacy, its a red flag to me.
Their servers are located in the Netherlands. Its good that they list that. It would be better to hoist information into something that is less policy/legal oriented and perhaps provide an overview of the laws of that region.
Other things that should be listed is how is the data stored, transferred, how is it protected, are there any steps to anonymize the data, hash the data, or provide a way to bring your on key for data encryption.
Is there any telemetry gathered or stored by the server? Is the code in the github project the same that is deployed in production or is there a private repo that augments the code?
Fyi, HN uses a limited version of markdown which doesn’t recognize standard markdown list syntax. If you want to make a bullet list, you have to put blank lines between each bullet point, like this:
——
- "No trackers, no javascript, no stylesheets"
- inline js.
- inline stylesheets.
- uses favicon which can be used for tracking.
- not self hosted.
- requires an account to sign up
- "TOS" > "Bear may disclose personally identifiable information under special circumstances, such as to comply with subpoenas or when your actions violate the Terms of Service."
Please don’t say HN uses any form of Markdown. It’s its own thing entirely with absolutely no foundation in Markdown—the only points of any similarity between Markdown and HN comment formatting predate both by multiple decades. HN’s formatting gives you paragraph breaks (by blank lines), linkification (with no delimiter, unlike stock Markdown which requires angle brackets, to the surprise of many), monospaced blocks (by two space indentation), italics (with asterisk delimiter), backslash escaping for asterisks, and that’s all. Every element of this, or a very slight variant, has been common in lightweight markdown languages since before Markdown, and all but the backslash escaping and hyperlinks (which hadn’t been invented yet!) have been in conventional use in communication since well before the web (and match some typewriter conventions from before the invention of computers).
Markdown is not the only game in town. Yes, for now it’s the dominant lightweight markup language (more’s the pity—it’s a right mess, thoroughly unsound and inconsistent in a great many ways), but a lot of stuff exists beyond its horizons; it’s only an instance of LMLs, not the whole class.
It uses styling in a style tag and doesn't make a second call to an external stylesheet. So it has styling (although very little of it), not stylesheets.
I think this is being pedantic. There are styles in a <style> tag (cause it turns out pure HTML doesn't read so well). It doesn't have external stylesheets, however.
Readit News
After getting burned out of blogging after maintaining my own platform (instead of just writing), something like this is appealing to me.
Is it possible for others to use this as well ?
But try to signup. It should work for other people too now. It just not polished yet.
Non trivial. I wish there was an API.
Well, there is a fair amount of css wrapped in <style> tags. Not sure I understand the upside of not putting it in a separate file.
Though the look is reasonably pleasant.
Edit: The example blog also loads js, despite the "no javascript" claim. Like: <script src="https://cdn.usefathom.com/script.js" data-site="WKWMFTPV" defer></script>. Perhaps that's not a default thing, but it seems odd to link to an example blog that doesn't match the sales pitch.
I ran a bunch of tests when setting it up to see what loads faster and it turns out the <style> tag in the head, with such minimal styles outperformed external stylesheets (even though the browser can cache them). With styles so small once the html page is loaded (at 2-5kb gzipped) the styles are immediate, whereas even if retrieving from browser cache the html needs to load first before it can take effect.
The second bit with Fathom analytics is that users can optionally connect Fathom to their accounts (this is the only analytics tool you can connect since they have a track record of being trustworthy). But yes, it is technically included JS.
All in all I think developers have considered all options and chose the best solution for their particular use case.
Unless you’re hyper tuning the page load performance in some specific way I think CSS is usually best served as a separate asset with a very generous cache time.
If the entirety of the CSS is extremely minimal it can make sense to in-line it too. Especially if you can get everything in at under 14kb. (Initial TCP window size)
Seems like this is loading Fathom analytics: https://usefathom.com/
Probably safe to turn off, as uBlock Origins and other ad blocking solutions would, depending on your settings. So I guess in a way the site itself works just fine without JS enabled and doesn't require it, but the authors have chosen to add analytics to see who uses their site, then.
Deleted Comment
I inject some CSS to make it work for me, i.e. fonts - and simple colors and I removed most of the "extra" pages because I wanted to keep it as a one pager. It's a great platform and I wish there was a version where I could self host it like `hexo.js`
Thanks for your work herman!
[1] orlie.dev - Currently using it behind Cloudflare!
- "No trackers, no javascript, no stylesheets" - inline js. - inline stylesheets. - uses favicon which can be used for tracking. - not self hosted. - requires an account to sign up - "TOS" > "Bear may disclose personally identifiable information under special circumstances, such as to comply with subpoenas or when your actions violate the Terms of Service." - can't be bothered to indent the html. - payment system could require real identity.
As far as I understand bitcoin is mostly useless for actual payment these days.
Their servers are located in the Netherlands. Its good that they list that. It would be better to hoist information into something that is less policy/legal oriented and perhaps provide an overview of the laws of that region.
Other things that should be listed is how is the data stored, transferred, how is it protected, are there any steps to anonymize the data, hash the data, or provide a way to bring your on key for data encryption.
Is there any telemetry gathered or stored by the server? Is the code in the github project the same that is deployed in production or is there a private repo that augments the code?
——
- "No trackers, no javascript, no stylesheets"
- inline js.
- inline stylesheets.
- uses favicon which can be used for tracking.
- not self hosted.
- requires an account to sign up
- "TOS" > "Bear may disclose personally identifiable information under special circumstances, such as to comply with subpoenas or when your actions violate the Terms of Service."
- can't be bothered to indent the html.
- payment system could require real identity
Markdown is not the only game in town. Yes, for now it’s the dominant lightweight markup language (more’s the pity—it’s a right mess, thoroughly unsound and inconsistent in a great many ways), but a lot of stuff exists beyond its horizons; it’s only an instance of LMLs, not the whole class.
> uses stylesheets anyway
I don't get this part.
https://github.com/HermanMartinus/bearblog/issues/152