Almost Done I Swear
I really hope this is the second or third to last post I make about making posts.
Listen, I know you’re probably as tired of these rapid-fire posts as I am writing them, so fear not! The project is almost over.
The fact that you’re seeing this means that the site itself is working. So that’s good! Everything should be in order, such as the homepage showing post cards with titles, descriptions, and title images.
The pipeline between creating posts and publishing them is working. I am using Front Matter CMS, a plugin available for Visual Studio Code, so I am taking a very low-down technical approach with this one. It’s almost like drinking a can of soda, cutting the can in half, and saving the bottom as a future drinking vessel. It works, but it’s not as glamorous as fine crystal, if you know what I mean. The theme package I am using came with the GitHub Actions workflow file, so I had to do very little to get the site deployed and running.
While convoluted, I have my images being sent up to CloudFlare (h/t to @Nimgimli for the suggestion). I don’t think I’m doing it the way I should be, but because Front Matter CMS sits between obtaining the image and using the image, I have to upload a picture using Front Matter, use a custom script to upload it to CloudFlare, and then replace a locally served file with the CloudFlare ID for the matching file. I fully expect this to break, but the alternative would be to upload each image individually, get the IDs one by one, and insert the images into the post by hand. Even worse, check in each and every image with every commit, blowing out my repo and probably getting the hosting side of the equation shut down. So this works, but it’s really kludgy.
Technically, it’s working, but you might notice that this site is being served from https://blog.scopique.com and not the root domain. There’s a good reason for that: I have a crapload of stuff associated with the DNS records for the root domain. In order to get my original WordPress site working I had to put the domain’s DNS under my host’s control. In order to be able to cancel my hosting package I’ll need to move my DNS back to my registrar but that also means I’ll have to copy my existing DNS entries for things like email and other “verified” services, or move the domain and then try to remember what I need to do to get all of those services verified again. I’d rather not do that, so I am hoping to just move the domain back to my registrar, copy the current DNS records over by hand, sans the WordPress specific entries, and point the root domain at this site.
The one feature I do not have a plan for right now is the comments section. The Astro theme comes with support for using GitHub Discussions as a comment platform, but that only works for users wiith GitHub accounts. I don’t want to dissuade interested commentators by requiring an account to a site they might never use or never even knew existed before now, so I have to find some other solution that I can integrate into Astro and/or this theme package. Until then, feel free to leave a comment if you have a GitHub account, but if not, you can certainly find me on Gamepad.club.
Aside from the DNS shuffle and finding a new comment system, I think it’s time I created a “development” branch to start working on sprucing things up. This theme works very well, but it’s kind of basic. I’m not sad about that but I think I might try to improve the homepage a bit by adding…something…to the display of the cards representing the posts. I’d also like to get a better header, although there’s something about having a minimalist aesthetic that works. Few people enter the site through the homepage anyway, and I’m pleased with how the post pages look.
I think I also need to do something about the other pages in the site, but that’s not super high on my radar right now.
I am going to stop posting to the WordPress site, though. I think that’s got to be part of ripping the band-aid off and while it’s slowly ripping the band-aid off, once I start rippin’, I’ll be forced to go all the way.