I know terminals are terrifying for most people (totally get that), and of course the non-dev shouldn't have to install a code editor and environment or mess with npm.
I almost feel like we can go super simple in a lot of cases while still having people see the code -
How about just providing a copy-paste boilerplate of a simple single page starter site. It's carefully commented, with obvious areas for editing left open with lots of spacing, "EDIT HERE", "LEAVE THIS" etc.
> How about just providing a copy-paste boilerplate of a simple single page starter site. It's carefully commented, with obvious areas for editing left open with lots of spacing, "EDIT HERE", "LEAVE THIS" etc.
This is the exact thing that I want to put together. A series of similar but different single or multiple-page templates for building fan sites.
Absolutely! The temptation would be to just throw something like this up on github but I think even that looks a bit too codey for this sort of thing. But I trust in what you'll do, and make it friendly.
I love this idea! I might make one too some day (and leave the classless CSS project unfinished, hahaha I knew this would happen)
@flamed Ideas coming now - we can leverage :has() for when a template still has placeholders in it - so you can leave in gallery items with no user-changed image addresses and be like
@goodenoughllc@flamed@robb in some ways it'd be nice to make a simple page generator - but I don't want to overcomplicate this... It needs a website with an automated "copy to clipboard" or "download as file" but with the code mostly exposed probably... Hm hm hm
I think we’re on the right track with drop in html/css templates with instructions commented in…
CSS variables at the top of the styles page with instructions for changing colours or fonts.
A directory of html files for various types of pages and folders for images.
Then a tutorial on how to create an account at somewhere like Neocities and how to drag and drop their website folder in and see their effort live on the web.
Im going to do some fansite research and understand what the standard website would look like for a musician, a band, an actor, a movie, a tv show, a computer game, a book, a song etc.
The templates should have simple layouts that are fluid and accessible.
Further iterations would include component templates/examples where you can copy and paste into particular places in your html to extend functionality, widgets etc
I like neocities but wish there were other, similar options.
The thing I observe about neocitizens is that after a while they’re comfortable with html/css and want to start using php for its templating capabilities. Consistent navigation is a pain for static handcrafted sites.
Can a static host expose something like Server Side Includes (SSI)? Are they still a thing? That was Apache right?
@flamed there's a whole load of web dev I don't know that fell in the gap between my teenage site building and my new front end dev career 😅
I tagged in @goodenoughllc because yay.boo is a nice easy file upload, like Netlify was some time ago (now that "just drop your files here" thing is well hidden within deploy settings and no longer central on their landing page).
I dunno if yay.boo might consider adding a UI/text area for inputting HTML & CSS on the web - that's what's cool at neocities.
@flamed@goodenoughllc I would say once they're looking at php or other solutions, that's when static frameworks like astro and 11ty come in, and those users are a bit beyond this remit, I feel...
@sarajw@robb@flamed I'm old enough to remember Posterous, which was literally "publish to the web by sending an email". I feel it was a brilliant idea, just at the wrong time.
All this recent talk of making getting on the indie web as easy as possible - which it should be! - has got me wondering where we draw the line between it's an app (site tool) problem and a hosting problem? Elements of both need to be thought about
@mstrkapowski@robb@flamed sorry, let me elaborate - so there are tons of places you can just get your stuff online, so many platforms.
What we want is for it to be easier for people to put their own stuff online, and have it transferrable if say their hosting goes down - much like we mostly can with our personal websites, those of us who've built them.
If someone puts a bunch of html code into neocities, and it goes away, they can plop those files elsewhere. The whole process needs easing.
@flamed@mstrkapowski the classless template still isn't done really, what I've just put on neocities is separate with its own styles. Imma just playing :)
@sarajw@robb@flamed I’d like to plug my friend @maiwann ’s project Scribouilli (still only in French for now), it's basically a Markdown -> git -> HTML files on a git-based host like GitHub Pages. The git part of the stack is hidden, no need to trouble yourself with that: Scribouilli handles the project creation on your Git platform, etc. The goal is to provide a very simple way to make and host a basic website.
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