Overview
This entry is intended as a note-to-self to document my blog configuration.
The blog framework I chose is: Hexo
The hexo theme I’ve settled on is: Fexo
I’m editing with the atom text editor, and have enabled the markdown-writer plugin.
Hexo
Hexo is a simple blog framework that generates static pages. Blog posts are created in the markdown format, then parsed by hexo. Hexo outputs static site content which you can synchronize to your web server. Hexo is written in node.js.
Requirements
Hexo requires Node.js and Git.
Installation
Hexo can be installed with npm (Node.js package manager) with a single command:$ npm install -g hexo-cli
Once hexo is installed you’ll use the hexo
command to configure the blog. Typing the command with no parameters outputs the following:
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I created a folder: X:\routeswitch.net
and initialized the blog folder with:
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This creates a number of files and folders:
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From here I examined the _config.yml
file, which is in a really simple markup format: YET ANOTHER MARKUP LANGUAGE.
A few configuration changes were required here:
I’ll likely revisit this once I have a more appropriate name and the like.
The default theme, landscape, didn’t suit my tastes. After spending a few hours trying out and customizing various themes I chose Fexo by Forsigner.
Fexo
“Fexo“ by Forsigner is a minimalist theme for Hexo. Fexo’s documentation is here.
There are four reasons why I chose fexo:
- Fexo makes it easy to display a list of blog entries by title on my landing page.
- Fexo automatically creates a contents side-bar. This side-bar parses the headers, diplays the header of the article section the readers is viewing, and allows the reader to click to jump to a different section.
- Integrated disqus support. With word-press I had the hassle of managing my own comment systems that is susceptible to attack. With disqus I cede some control but alleviate another administrative burden.
- Fexo has a clean look.
Fexo’s default language is Chinese, but it has localization files for both Norwegian and English. I changed the default language setting in routeswitch\_config.yml
and started from there.
The primary changes I made were:
The creation of a personal-style.css. Here I overrode some of the default theme settings. Notably, changing away from some custom fonts to Arial.
Toggling the creation of an Archive page, a Tags page, and an About page.
At the moment the archives page is essentially the same as the “Home” page. I might omit it entirely unless I discover some additional functionality.
Atom Editor
Atom is an open-source cross-platform text editor started by the folks at github.
I wanted something to replace the various text editors I use across platforms. I had only been using Mac for the past 6-7 years, but with the purchase of a Microsoft Surface, Windows has come back into my life. Many years ago I used notepad++, and while it served me well I thought it would be a fine time to evaluate my options.
I’m loving Atom so far. It is themeable and supports packages which extend its capabilities. I’ll likely create a YouTube video showing my configuration.
markdown-writer
The markdown-writer Atom plugin enables additional keyboard shortcuts to assist when creating .markdown files. It has a cheat sheet built in which is accessible by pressing ctrl-shift-p
and entering markdown-writer cheat sheet
- autocomplete makes this fast.
The following keyboard shortcuts were added into atom:
But son, her emails…