204 lines
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HTML
204 lines
14 KiB
HTML
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<meta property="og:title" content="Jekyll Is Cool, But..." />
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<title>Jekyll Is Cool, But...</title>
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<a class="self-center text-2xl font-bold" href="/">PapaTutuWawa's Blog</a>
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<li class="inline mr-8"><a href="/">Posts</a></li>
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<li class="inline mr-8"><a href="https://polynom.me">About</a></li>
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<h1 class="text-indigo-400 text-3xl">Jekyll Is Cool, But...</h1>
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<span class="text-md mt-2">Posted on 2020-09-29</span>
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<!-- Actual article -->
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<article class="prose lg:prose-lg text-white mt-4">
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<p>I love static site generators. They are really cool pieces of software.
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Give them some configuration files, maybe a bit of text and you receive
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a blog or a homepage. Neat!</p>
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<span id="continue-reading"></span>
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<p>For a long time, I have been using <a href="https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll"><em>Jekyll</em></a>
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as my static site generator of choice. Mostly, because it is one of the
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most famous ones out there and thus there are tons of plugins, documentation
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and templates to get started. It was nice, until I wished it would do
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a bit more...</p>
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<p>During some time off, I wanted to do an overhaul of my infrastructure. Make
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things cleaner, document more things and finally do those tasks that I have
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been pushing aside for quite some time. One of those things is to make all
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my webpages, which today only include <a href="https://git.polynom.me/PapaTutuWawa/blog.polynom.me">this blog</a>
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and my <a href="https://git.polynom.me/polynom.me/xmpp-invite-web">XMPP invite page</a>,
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share common assets. This got started after I wrote the invitation page
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and thought that it looked pretty good.</p>
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<p>So off I went to create a subdomain for my own "CDN", generate a TLS
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certificate and... I got stuck. I wanted to have <em>Jekyll</em> generate two
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seperate versions of my pages for me depending on what I wanted to do:
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One with local assets for local previewing and testing and one with my
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"CDN" attached. As such I would have liked to have three files: <code>_config.dev.yml</code>,
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<code>_config.deploy.yml</code> and <code>_config.common.yml</code>, where <code>_config.common.yml</code>
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contained data shared between both the deployed and the locally developed
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version and the other two just contain a variable that either points to a local
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folder or my "CDN". However, I have not found a way to do this. Looking back, I perhaps
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would have been able to just specify the common config first and then specify another
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config file to acomplish this, but now I am in love with another piece of software.</p>
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<p>Additionally, I would have liked to integrate the entire webpage building process
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more with my favourite build system, <em>GNU Make</em>. But <em>Jekyll</em> feels like it attempts
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to do everything by itself. And this may be true: <em>Jekyll</em> tries to do as much as
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possible to cater to as many people as possible. As such, <em>Jekyll</em> is pretty powerful, until
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you want to change things.</p>
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<h2 id="introducing-makesite">Introducing makesite</h2>
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<p>While casually browsing the Internet, I came across a small
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<a href="https://github.com/sunainapai/makesite"><em>Github</em> repository</a> for a
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static page generator. But this one was different. The entire repository was just
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a Python script and some files to demonstrate how it works. The script itself was just
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232 lines of code. The Readme stated that it did one thing and that the author was not
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going to just add features. If someone wanted a new feature, he or she was free to just
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add it by themself. Why am I telling you all this? Because this is the - in my opinion -
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best static site generator I have ever used.</p>
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<h3 id="simplicity">Simplicity</h3>
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<p><em>makesite</em> is very simple. In its upstream version, it just generates user defined pages,
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renders a blog from Markdown to HTML and generates a RSS feed. It does templating, but without
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using heavy and fancy frameworks like <em>Jinja2</em>. The "<em>Getting Started</em>" section of <em>makesite</em> is
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shorter than the ones of other static site generators, like <em>Jekyll</em> and <em>Hugo</em>.</p>
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<p>This may seem like a bad thing. If it does not do thing X, then I cannot use it. But that is where
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<em>makesite</em>'s beauty comes in. You can just add it. The code is very short, well documented and
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extensible. It follows the <a href="https://suckless.org/philosophy/">"<em>suckless philosophy</em>"</a>. In my case,
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I added support for loading different variables based on the file <em>makesite</em> is currently compiling,
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copying and merging different asset folders - and ignoring certain files - and specifying variables
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on the command line. Would I upstream those changes? Probably not as they are pretty much unique to
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my own needs and my own usecase. And that is why <em>makesite</em> is so nice: Because it is not <em>a</em> static
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site generator, it is <strong>your</strong> static site generator.</p>
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<h3 id="speed">Speed</h3>
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<p><em>makesite</em> is fast... Really fast. In the time my Makefile has compiled my page and tar-balled it,
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ready for deployment, <em>Jekyll</em> is still building it. And that makes sense, <em>Jekyll</em> is pretty powerful
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and does a lot. But for me, I do not need all this power. This blog is not so difficult to generate,
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my invite page is not difficult to generate, so why would I need all this power?</p>
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<pre style="background-color:#2b303b;color:#c0c5ce;"><code><span># Jekyll version
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</span><span>> time make build
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</span><span># [...]
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</span><span>make build 1.45s user 0.32s system 96% cpu 1.835 total
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</span><span>
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</span><span># makesite version
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</span><span>> time make build
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</span><span># [...]
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</span><span>make build 0.35s user 0.06s system 100% cpu 0.406 total
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</span></code></pre>
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<h3 id="buildsystem-integration">Buildsystem Integration</h3>
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<p>In case of <em>Jekyll</em>, <em>Jekyll</em> pretty much <em>is</em> your buildsystem. This is not so great, if you already
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have a favourite buildsystem that you would prefer to use, since it does not integrate well. <em>makesite</em>, on
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the other hand, does just the bare minimum and thus gives the buildsystem much more to work with. In my case,
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<em>makesite</em> just builds my blog or my other pages. If I want to preview them, then my Makefile just starts a
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local webserver with <code>python -m http.server 8080</code>. If I want to deploy, then my Makefile tar-balls the resulting
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directory.</p>
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<pre data-lang="makefile" style="background-color:#2b303b;color:#c0c5ce;" class="language-makefile "><code class="language-makefile" data-lang="makefile"><span style="color:#65737e;"># [...]
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</span><span>
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</span><span style="color:#8fa1b3;">serve</span><span>: </span><span style="color:#b48ead;">${</span><span style="color:#bf616a;">OPTIMIZED_IMAGES</span><span style="color:#b48ead;">}
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</span><span> </span><span style="color:#bf616a;">python</span><span> ../shared-assets/makesite.py \
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</span><span style="color:#bf616a;"> -p</span><span> params.json \
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</span><span style="color:#bf616a;"> -v</span><span> page_assets=/assets \
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</span><span style="color:#bf616a;"> -v</span><span> build_time="</span><span style="color:#b48ead;">${</span><span style="color:#bf616a;">BUILD_DATE</span><span style="color:#b48ead;">}</span><span>" \
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</span><span style="color:#bf616a;"> --assets</span><span> ../shared-assets/assets \
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</span><span style="color:#bf616a;"> --assets</span><span> ./assets \
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</span><span style="color:#bf616a;"> --copy-assets </span><span>\
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</span><span style="color:#bf616a;"> --ignore</span><span> ../shared-assets/assets/img \
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</span><span style="color:#bf616a;"> --ignore</span><span> assets/img/raw \
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</span><span style="color:#bf616a;"> --include</span><span> robots.txt \
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</span><span style="color:#bf616a;"> --blog </span><span>\
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</span><span style="color:#bf616a;"> --rss
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</span><span> </span><span style="color:#96b5b4;">cd</span><span> _site/ && </span><span style="color:#bf616a;">python -m</span><span> http.server 8080
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</span><span>
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</span><span style="color:#8fa1b3;">build</span><span>: </span><span style="color:#b48ead;">${</span><span style="color:#bf616a;">OPTIMIZED_IMAGES</span><span style="color:#b48ead;">}
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</span><span> </span><span style="color:#bf616a;">python</span><span> ../shared-assets/makesite.py \
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</span><span style="color:#bf616a;"> -p</span><span> params.json \
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</span><span style="color:#bf616a;"> -v</span><span> page_assets=https://cdn.polynom.me \
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</span><span style="color:#bf616a;"> -v</span><span> build_time="</span><span style="color:#b48ead;">${</span><span style="color:#bf616a;">BUILD_DATE</span><span style="color:#b48ead;">}</span><span>" \
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</span><span style="color:#bf616a;"> --assets</span><span> ./assets \
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</span><span style="color:#bf616a;"> --copy-assets </span><span>\
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</span><span style="color:#bf616a;"> --ignore</span><span> assets/img/raw \
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</span><span style="color:#bf616a;"> --include</span><span> robots.txt \
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</span><span style="color:#bf616a;"> --blog </span><span>\
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</span><span style="color:#bf616a;"> --rss
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</span><span> </span><span style="color:#bf616a;">tar -czf</span><span> blog.tar.gz _site
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</span></code></pre>
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<p>This is an excerpt from the Makefile of this blog. It may seem verbose when <em>Jekyll</em> does all this
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for you, but it gives me quite a lot of power. For example:</p>
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<ul>
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<li><code>-v page_assets=...</code> (only in my version) gives me the ability to either use local assets or my "CDN" for deploying;</li>
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<li><code>--copy-assets --assets ./assets</code> (only in my version) allows me to copy my static assets over, so that everything is ready for deployment. If I want to use all assets, including the shared ones, then I just add another <code>--assets ../shared-assets/assets</code> and change the <code>page_assets</code> variable;</li>
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<li>conditionally decide if I want a blog and/or an RSS feed with <code>--blog</code> and <code>--rss</code></li>
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<li><code>-v</code> allows me to pass variables directly from the commandline so that I can inject build-time data, like e.g. the build date</li>
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</ul>
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<p>If I wanted to, I could now also add a minifier on the build target or page signing with <a href="https://github.com/tasn/webext-signed-pages">Signed Pages</a>.
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It would be more difficult with <em>Jekyll</em>, while it is just adding a command to my Makefile.</p>
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<p>Another great thing here is the usage of <code>${OPTIMIZED_IMAGES}</code>: In my blog I sometimes use images. Those images have to be loaded and, especially if
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they are large, take some time until you can fully see them. I could implement something using JavaScript and make the browser load the images
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lazily, but this comes with three drawbacks:</p>
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<ol>
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<li>It requires JavaScript for loading an image, which is a task that the browser is already good at;</li>
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<li>Implementing it with JavaScript may lead to content moving around as the images are loaded in, which results in a terrible user experience;</li>
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<li>Some people may block JavaScript for security and privacy, which would break the site if I were to, for example, write a post that is filled with images for explanations.</li>
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</ol>
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<p>The target <code>${OPTIMIZED_IMAGES}</code> in my Makefile automatically converts my raw images into progressive JPEGs, if new images are added. However, this
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rebuild does not happen every time. It only happens when images are changed or added. Progressive JPEGs are a kind of JPEG where the data can be
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continously loaded in from the server, first showing the user a low quality version which progressively gets higher quality. With <em>Jekyll</em> I probably
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would have had to install a plugin that I can only use with <em>Jekyll</em>, while now I can use <em>imagemagick</em>, which I have already installed for other
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use cases.</p>
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<h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2>
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<p>Is <em>makesite</em> easy? It depends. If you want to generate a website with blog
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that fits exactly the way upstream wrote the script, yes. If you want to do
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something different, it becomes more difficult as you then have to patch
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<em>makesite</em> yourself.</p>
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<p>Per default, <em>makesite</em> is more limited than other static site generators out
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there, but that is, in my opinion, where <em>makesite</em>'s versatility and
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customizability comes from. From now on, I will only use <em>makesite</em> for my
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static pages.</p>
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</article>
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<!-- Common post footer -->
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<div class="mt-6">
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<span class="prose lg:prose-lg text-md text-white">
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If you have any questions or comments, then feel free to send me an email (Preferably with GPG encryption)
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to papatutuwawa [at] polynom.me or reach out to me on the Fediverse at <a href="https://social.polynom.me/papatutuwawa">@papatutuwawa@social.polynom.me</a>.
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</span>
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