[HN Gopher] Publii - CMS with SSG
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       Publii - CMS with SSG
        
       Author : smusamashah
       Score  : 67 points
       Date   : 2021-03-07 13:23 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (getpublii.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (getpublii.com)
        
       | figassis wrote:
       | I tried, then dropped it because it does not support GitHub. This
       | one integration could unlock so much potential that I would take
       | gh over gh pages any day.
        
         | pronoiac wrote:
         | Maybe look again? https://getpublii.com/docs/host-static-
         | website-github-pages....
        
       | pembrook wrote:
       | Gave Publii a try a few months back. My impressions:
       | 
       |  _the good_
       | 
       | Comes with a great, minimalist editor UI built in
       | 
       | The templates available are very well designed
       | 
       | Great SEO defaults (and amp support) out of the box (a huge
       | problem for most SSGs)
       | 
       |  _the bad_
       | 
       | Completely removes the entire value of a SSG for me - custom
       | building features into sites is not at all easy or intuitive
       | 
       | The editor can only be run locally on a single desktop machine -
       | also a non-starter for me
       | 
       | Ultimately I think publii would be great for a humble 1 person
       | blog, with no commercial aspirations.
       | 
       | If you're trying to build a business, and still want the ease of
       | updating, go with Webflow (or Wordpress, if you're non-
       | technical).
        
         | loteck wrote:
         | _The editor can only be run locally on a single desktop machine
         | - also a non-starter for me_
         | 
         | Publii from multiple computers works fine if you use cloud
         | storage.
         | https://www.google.com/amp/s/getpublii.com/docs/amp/publii-o...
        
         | marc_io wrote:
         | You can integrate an e-commerce in Publii with third-party
         | tools, so I think it can actually be used by people with
         | "commercial aspirations".
        
       | iamgopal wrote:
       | What are the features that are still missing from static site
       | generators ?
        
         | SPBS wrote:
         | A user interface for non technical users. Which is a real shame
         | because a static CMS is conceptually simpler than a dynamic
         | one, yet WordPress in still the king in this space. Current
         | SSGs are missing out on an untapped niche by burying all their
         | features behind developer-oriented config files and flags when
         | they could be rolled into a nice front-end UI that any non
         | technical user could use. Publii seems to be a promising
         | attempt in that regard.
        
           | qbasic_forever wrote:
           | Netlify CMS is nice, and despite the name it works completely
           | independenly of using Netlify as the host:
           | https://www.netlifycms.org/docs/intro/ I won't lie though it
           | is very akward to setup and use if you aren't using Netlify--
           | documentation is extremely thin, and it's a beta phase
           | feature to selfhost. But it is a really nice and simple
           | editor view that non-technical people could use. This is
           | where the (very thin) documentation for self hosting it
           | outside Netlify starts: https://www.netlifycms.org/docs/beta-
           | features/#working-with-...
           | 
           | Another good one is Jekyll Admin:
           | https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll-admin It's not as nice as
           | wordpress but gets the job done for a basic markdown focused
           | site. Selfhosting it is a lot easier and more documented than
           | Netlify CMS.
        
           | inthewoods wrote:
           | www.cloudcannon.com
        
           | badsectoracula wrote:
           | Well, it does require making a good desktop editor which
           | isn't something many developers are interested into these
           | days. Publii is a desktop application but even that is an
           | Electron app (which doesn't even take advantage of it being
           | an Electron app and having an entire browser engine
           | underneath and requires you to open the generated site in
           | your browser instead).
        
         | notahacker wrote:
         | Integration with design/mockup tools.
         | 
         | This goes some way to addressing that, but it's a proprietary
         | tool for theme tweaking rather than something like Figma, but
         | for production templates
        
           | marc_io wrote:
           | Stackbit Studio is the closest thing to that I've seen so
           | far.
        
       | 1MachineElf wrote:
       | My mom publishes a tiny site via WordPress. Some of the plugins
       | and themes she relies upon are no longer maintained. I was
       | researching Publii yesterday, wondering if it could be a better
       | alternative. She already exports a static version of the
       | WordPress site using a Simply Static plugin. Publii also has a
       | WordPress import feature. Those two facts combined with that
       | seems to be a friendly UI makes it worth trying out.
        
         | oulipo wrote:
         | You can take a look at https://motif.land too
        
           | inetsee wrote:
           | I took a look and I was not impressed. Assuming that the home
           | page was built with Motif, the font was far too small. Even
           | after increasing the size 3 times the font was still too
           | small for my preference. There is no information on the home
           | page about cost, and "requesting access" requires that you
           | provide 10 pieces of information. I may be wrong, but my
           | thought when I saw that was that this is an information
           | harvesting site.
        
         | freedomben wrote:
         | I run a few WordPress sites, two very small, one pretty large,
         | and I've got to say WordPress and the maturity there is truly
         | incredible. I used the Simply Static plugin on one of the sites
         | and it is great. The other sites are way too dynamic however. I
         | can't even use much caching because of that, so performance is
         | a constant battle.
         | 
         | The big site is getting ported to Elixir/Phoenix in the next
         | year or so, but it will be tough to match feature parity for
         | the content producer(s), who are very non-technical in nature.
        
       | dmje wrote:
       | It's interesting to me how much interest SSG's get and how much
       | bad press WordPress gets. I don't agree with everything that
       | Mullenweg says but recently he was in an interview where he was
       | saying (along the lines of..): "devs say they need styling, and
       | theming and plugins and comments and a nice ui and then they come
       | up with an alternative to Wordpress, wtf!?" and really, he's got
       | a point.
       | 
       | On the one hand - if you seriously just want a static site, then
       | just build it by hand. If you want a script to chunk through a
       | bunch of markdown files, then do that. But don't go thinking that
       | any of these approaches are going to come close to the _editor_
       | simplicity - or familiarity - of Wordpress. And please, please,
       | please don't forget that THE EDITORS - the non-technical, content
       | production workhorse - are the people that matter here. Having
       | some elegant dev-centric CMS that has some astonishingly amazing
       | data structure and a whizzy JAMstack style phalange doesn't mean
       | squit if your editors can't use it. The point of most sites is
       | the content, and the clue is in the name: a Content management
       | system. If your editors are miserable, your site will be crap,
       | end of.
       | 
       | Then of course there is the "well, it's hard to maintain" crowd,
       | to which I say either 1) Wordpress.com: free, hosted, secure or
       | 2) ..and you think your groovy jamstack style crazily complex
       | hipster tangled-ness is seriously easier to maintain than a
       | simple LAMP stack?
       | 
       | There is something compelling about a system that dumps static
       | files _from_ Wordpress (I'm building one as a plugin just for a
       | laugh right now) - this way you get the niceness of the editing
       | interface without the (apparent) hosting woes, but throwing out
       | both the familiarity of the interface and then adding in a whole
       | other raft of complexities seems nuts to me.
        
         | badsectoracula wrote:
         | FWIW the linked SSG CMS isn't your usual directory-with-
         | markdown-and-obsure-scripts, Publii is fully visual editor.
        
           | dmje wrote:
           | Yeh, I've had a play with it in the past. It seems
           | reasonable. But it comes with its own set of complexities and
           | nuances and ultimately I just ended up back at Wordpress,
           | which is where I'd started.
        
         | blowski wrote:
         | Agencies. WordPress is a commoditised product that puts them on
         | the same level as everybody else. Whereas a bespoke CMS locks
         | clients in, whilst providing a "unique client experience". It's
         | "not invented here" syndrome as suffered by business owners.
         | 
         | It's total bullshit of course, but I think they're the people
         | who sustain the myth. It's how you end up with some tiny
         | company that very rarely changes their website having a bespoke
         | CMS.
        
         | api wrote:
         | Headless CMSes have always totally mystified me. I tried to get
         | into them once to try them out and was unable to understand how
         | this was better than either a conventional CMS or just writing
         | fucking HTML.
        
           | mekkkkkk wrote:
           | Headless CMSes are great for when you want to consume the
           | managed content on multiple clients. For example, if you have
           | a bunch of the editorial stuff that you want to present on
           | both an app and websites. We even use the headless CMS for
           | managing copy sent to customers in notifications and emails.
           | It's a quick and easy bridge between editors and tech stacks.
        
       | maskedoffender wrote:
       | I tried this a couple years ago and I found the quality to not be
       | as good or as flexible as jekyll with a Netlify cms.
       | 
       | (Not that setting up Jekyll is easy though)
        
         | baxtr wrote:
         | What were you missing? I have an idea about a service with:
         | domain + Jekyll + CD pipeline in my backlog for a long time
         | now.
        
       | cjohansson wrote:
       | One important reason that is often overlooked is that static
       | sites are cheaper to host since they don't require a preprocessor
       | that consumes server resources. In the future maybe there is
       | cheap hosting for Rust/C++ web preprocessors (resource-efficient
       | = low cost) and static generators will be less of a thing..
        
       | subpixel wrote:
       | Shout out to webhook.com! This project was just ahead of its
       | time, but I built dozens of sites using it as a Wordpress
       | alternative and it was awesome.
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8093324
        
         | baxtr wrote:
         | Site seems to be down. Is it still supported?
        
           | subpixel wrote:
           | Long dead
        
       | smusamashah wrote:
       | I just found Nicepage[1] and creating a template with it for my
       | brother for portfolio, articles and other creative work.
       | 
       | [1]: https://nicepage.com/Editor/Siteboard/
        
       | threatofrain wrote:
       | Which site generation stack do people prefer for a workflow of
       | markdown and latex?
        
         | abhinav22 wrote:
         | I would recommend TinyMCE and then some of your own adjustments
         | 
         | I wrote https://writer.math.dev , it supports markdown and
         | latex
         | 
         | It can export to HTML and you can create your own custom
         | stylesheets to do layout
         | 
         | You have to add the MathJax script & configuration to your HTML
         | header (I probably should just put this in by default)
         | 
         | But my main point is that you can create your own workflow easy
         | and I highly recommend you using TinyMCE as your input editor.
         | It's freaking super easy to use and super powerful
        
         | BossingAround wrote:
         | Hugo is very popular. I used it at work for internal sites,
         | it's incredibly easy to work with. Latex can be enabled by JS
         | libraries.
        
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       (page generated 2021-03-07 23:02 UTC)