Archive: December 2013

HTMLy: Databaseless Blogging Platform (Flat CMS)

There are times when we just want to write without having to think about site management, for example upgrading to the latest version (core and plugin), for this purpose I developed a blogging platform that does not use a database at all, so just write and write.

Although prioritizing simplicity and speed, but the platform also includes standard features available on a blog in general, for example:

  • Admin panel
  • Markdown editor with live preview
  • Categorization with tags (multi tags support)
  • Static pages Eg. for contact page
  • Meta canonical, description, and rich snippets for SEO
  • Pagination
  • Author page
  • Multi author support
  • Social links
  • Disqus Comments (optional)
  • Facebook Comments (optional)
  • Google Analytics
  • Built-in search
  • Related posts
  • Per post navigation (previous and next post)
  • Body class for easy theming
  • Breadcrumb
  • Archive page (by year, year-month, or year-month-day)
  • JSON API
  • OPML
  • RSS Feed
  • RSS 2.0 Importer (basic)
  • Sitemap.xml
  • Archive and tag cloud widget
  • SEO friendly URLs
  • Teaser thumbnail for images and Youtube videos
  • Responsive design
  • Lightbox
  • User role
  • Online backup

This platform is a kind of static web page (Flat CMS) in general but using markdown file to store all its posts. Creation date, category, and the URL is taken from the name of the file, example:

2013-12-25-12-56-40_general_url-of-the-post.md

Here's the explanation (separated by an underscore):

  • 2013-12-25-12-56-40 is the published date
  • general is the tag/category
  • url-of-the-post.md is forming the main url

So we only need to give the name of the file with above format and then upload them to a specified folder, in this case is inside content/author/blog folder for the blog post and content/static for static page.

For static pages I use the following format:

about.md

This means that about as the URL.

Why use a file name?

We believe if the performance will be faster by read the file name, filters it, then read the file content that are matched. Although this may change in the future.

What is the minimum requirements?

HTMLy only require PHP 5.3+, yes no database needed to run HTMLy.

So how do I get it?

You can download it on GitHub. Visit a real blog powered by HTMLy on Danlogs, or visit the official homepage at HTMLy.