Homebrew Website Club
indieweb.org
indieweb.org
Then after a few months the author will rewrite the blog again with a different framework and add another entry explaining why and how they did it.
Here's mine. Built with Hugo and deployed with GitHub Pages. The whole publication process is automated with GitHub Actions and takes a few key strokes to go from an idea to execution.
While back someone posted a web1.0 randomizer, everything still worked, granted its static but, its like those old 90s pages are the new time capsules.
www.jofla.net
This UI maximalism is like Marvel movies—tons of CGI and fancy visuals with poor storytelling. But at least writing these FE frameworks and JS evangelism pays the bill quite well.
You are my kind of internet user then <3 and makes me so happy to know there are people like you out there.
It's people like you I had in mind when I designed my site and also when I design sites for my friends.
JS on the other hand is for me where the fun interaction comes from, where the little details can shine through, where visualizations can be made interactive so the user can play around and really start to understand what's going on.
But yeah, I guess in the golden age of React and Angular, I also understand why people hade JS bloated websites.
Here's mine, there is multiple scavenger hunts, games and challenges hidden on the website and/or in the code:
Your approach to using JS is like mine. I work with HTML and CSS first then sometimes add JS to progressively enhance a page (i.e. add dark mode, add hovercards on links, make emojis appear on different days of the year).
The personal problem I have with cookie banners is that in order to _not consent_ they store a local cookie to not display the banner.
And the assumption of consent is by default, which is the exact opposite behaviour of what GDPR expects you to do. Nobody can consent by default to anything, that's the foundational basis of law in the EU.
I'm not using cookies for anything on my website, so there's no point in storing cookies. The Do Not Consent game is for people that want to play off some steam.
Most of our meetings are online now, but we have a longer, two-day in-person event coming up in Nürnberg at the end of October (https://events.indieweb.org/2023/10/indiewebcamp-nuremberg-2...).
I'll put both in my department's "General" Teams channel, as nearly half of us are not native German speakers - and most of the native German speakers are perfectly happy to get their web dev content in English.
A lot of IndieWeb events have been hosted in Germany.
There is an event called Beyond Tellerrand (btconf) hosted in Düsseldorf and Berlin every year, hosted by Marc and his amazing team (unaffiliated with Homebrew Website Club).
The IndieWeb sometimes hosts host events before or after Beyond Tellerrand conferences (I was at last year's Berlin btconf and IndieWeb event). I know it is a long journey from Nürnberg to those cities but both btconf and the IndieWeb events are both amazing ways to spend a few days if you love the web.
My site is one of those that modern folks call "virtual gardens" sometimes. Love to have new visitors, and I'm allergic to SEO for my personal stuff, haha.
https://benovermyer.com is my site.
You should know that your headshot photo doesn't scale down correctly on Firefox/Pixel 7. Currently it overflows the right side of the page causing horizontal scrolling.
Probably not what you were going for.
So much of the web are these copycat 'zines' which are jam-packed with all sorts of bells and whistles and have a sidebar packed with ADs and the content is laced with affiliate links so they can 'monetize' their web presence.
I enjoy other people's little 'corner of the web' which isn't housed in a walled garden social media platform, like the bulk of content these days.
[0] https://designlab.com/blog/examples-brutalism-in-web-design/
Case in point: SvelteJS. It's absolutely great for a homebrew website. It's also maintained by the NYTimes, which I subscribe to and like myself, but which also has a large chunk of its business in the SEO optimized website category (see: Wirecutter).
It does it in a classy way which doesn't feel so much like ads are being stuffed down your throat - but that business is SEO optimized down to its bones.
Just skimming the front page of Wirecutter now, a NYTimes owned property, shows articles like "The Best Sunscreens for Your Face", "The best beard trimmers we tested side by side surrounded by their attachments", "The Best Women’s Razors (for Every Body)" - these are all so textbook and by the SEO playbook they could be taught in a course.
Signup modal as soon as the page finished loading.
Cookie popup on the left.
"Schedule a call" CTA popup on the right.
Exit intent full screen modal.
During the calls we come together to chat about websites: what you are building, what you want to build, and how you can build it! If you are interested in the web, I (and the rest of community!) would love to see you!
P.S. My site is https://jamesg.blog -- what's your domain name?
Here's mine, https://drollery.org (I have not put much effort into the mobile version, it's a bit wonky since a recent styling update, best enjoyed on desktop). This is mostly in exercise in "why not?"
Be sure to click all the little marginalia cartoons!
We host a Europe and US meetup online every week and every two weeks, respectively, in addition to in person events. If there isn't an in-person event near you, reach out in https://indieweb.org/discuss to see if anyone would be interested in hosting one.
IDK how you write so many high quality stuff at such a fast pace while also doing a significant amount of OSS development work. Datasette and friends are such a joy to use.
You inspired me to get started with writing three years ago and I never stopped: https://rednafi.com.
The MediaWiki sparkline is powered by the same thing and https://sparkline.jamesg.blog (open source link in site footer).
I’m at https://hypertexthero.com
One suggestion I have is to consider using https://meet.jit.si/ instead of Zoom for meetings. GitHub link: https://jitsi.github.io/handbook/
Another thing I like about the independent, old-school web is that you can view the source code to learn things.
I love the Moments of Joy series on your site, and the Written by human not by AI label!
Have you viewed source on my site? You'll see a few comments along the way. I wanted to write my site in such a way that someone new to the web could take a look and learn how the HTML works on the page.
All credit for the badge goes to the wonderful https://notbyai.fyi/.
And ooh, I'm at https://codingotaku.com
also have seen you around a lot in the indieweb chat!!
it's nothing special, but I love the domain and paths
The little live player widget in the top right is my pride and joy :')
https://github.com/marcus-crane/utf9k for the source and https://github.com/marcus-crane/gunslinger for the cludgy backend that powers the live player
I went with an off-the-shelf, single-column theme and build mine on similar principles of simplicity and personal touch ups: https://rednafi.com
P.S. I love Billions, which at the time of writing is highlighted on your homepage.
About two years ago, I decided to rebuild the site (partially to get some hands-on experience building a PWA) and have basically been doing a gut-job of the frontend. I removed tracking pixels, frameworks and other javascript cruft, and brought focus to the RSS feed again. I spent time building a library of website 'cover art' too, which I cycle in periodically - typically when I post a new update to the blog. There's a lot more cleaning to do, but I'm happy to be actively iterating on the ol' website again.
Oh, and my 'personal site' is https://www.bitrotten.com
I'm based in Philadelphia, but I've got a lot going on IRL compared to when I launched this site 24 years ago, and I don't think I could do a regular meetup. But keep on fighting the good fight!
> it was clear that social networks like Twitter and Facebook had taken over as our primary channel
There are a lot of people in the IndieWeb who care about, and are working toward, building different ways to interact on the web. I follow blogs and people with Monocle (https://monocle.p3k.io), a social reader powered by Microsub (draft spec) and Micropub (https://indieweb.org/Micropub)
I can like posts on websites in my feed then the likes show up on my bookmarks site (https://jamesg.coffee). If a site supports Webmention (https://indieweb.org/Webmention), the author will be notified that I liked their post.
I am always happy to talk about social interactions on the web -- there is so much work we can do!
> I spent time building a library of website 'cover art' too, which I cycle in periodically - typically when I post a new update to the blog. There's a lot more cleaning to do, but I'm happy to be actively iterating on the ol' website again.
I _love_ this!
> I don't think I could do a regular meetup
We have a lot of people who stop by for a meetup every month or two online. All interested in the web are welcome to come on whatever cadence suits you; whether you come once a week, month, or year! There is also a community chat if you prefer text at https://indieweb.org/discuss
(Apologies for all the links. As it may be noted, I get excited easily!)
It matches my user name: https://matheusmoreira.com
> what you are building
Just a static site where I write stuff I think about. My idea is to write a new page every time I get the feeling I've written the same HN comment multiple times. Currently working on posts about ads and copyright which are topics I've commented on many times.
> what you want to build
I want to improve the website design. Haven't managed to create a header that doesn't look ugly yet.
> how you can build it
Some time ago I made a comment here on HN recommending pugjs for static sites and writing HTML by hand:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37019175
Not long afterwards I realized it has been unmaintained for years. So I forked it and took over maintenance. Deleted the parts I didn't need. Now it's a new variant of the language and it's powering my own site.
I am happy with my design, which has not changed in the past twenty years, but I am open for suggestions about improvements.
The layout of your recipes and the focus on the process without extraneous information makes me want to learn more about cooking. I have always been scared off by recipe sites. Your site looks like a great entry point for me.
I have a question about https://wordsandbuttons.online/lexical_differential_highligh.... What does this part mean:
> Ideally, the smaller the lexical difference, the greater the color difference should be.
I am fascinated by different ways to represent code visually.
Its in dire need of new back-nend.
Our next meetup is online on Wednesday, with events on Europe and US timezones (https://events.indieweb.org). No need to RSVP; just show up!
September 20, 2023 - Wed 7:00 - 9:00pm (Europe/London)
September 27, 2023 - Wed 6:00 - 8:00pm (America/Los_Angeles)
The individual event pages have timezone information (i.e. https://events.indieweb.org/2023/09/homebrew-website-club-eu...). I'm not sure why the homepage doesn't.BTW my website is https://bojanvidanovic.com
> what's your domain name?
Lives at https://manuelmoreale.com
If you nerd out about implementing protocols, there are some IndieWebers that will go out of their way to help you develop or test new ideas. We'd stay up into the night getting our servers to talk to each other in some never-seen-before way. Good times!
This is my site: https://mnky9800n.github.io/
I'm especially happy with https://mnky9800n.github.io/booklist/
Which uses a Google spreadsheet as the database for new books I read. Make it easy to update.
A community member wrote a guide on how to add different social web standards to a Hugo site (https://www.amitgawande.com/2018/02/10/204300.html).
For myself, back in the ‘90s, I was really into spending a bunch of time, hand-crafting Web sites, but these days, I just use rather lightly-modified WordPress sites.
Anyone remember the famous SatireWire Cubist Web Site story[0]?
[0] https://www.satirewire.com/cubists-launch-unnavigable-web-si...
I only have 6 posts over 4 years, mostly due to me thinking my ideas aren't "original" enough to warrant lengthy write-ups, but I know that's not exactly true.
Anyway, here's mine:
I just went down a rabbit hole looking at the RSVP specs, h-cards (which I remember from way back but thought was dead), and comments. And, I need to go deeper!
h-cards are still alive and well, and are used by technologies Webmention [1] (decentralized likes, comments, bookmarks, RSVPs, and more) as a profile! My site has one :)
I design and build a variety of open source themes for Jekyll and Hugo at https://github.com/zerostaticthemes and I also offer some premium themes at https://www.zerostatic.io.
At the moment, my site only has a small handful of posts from the past four years (6 to be exact), but that's mostly due to thinking my thoughts aren't "original" enough to warrant regular-length posts/articles, which I know probably isn't exactly true.
Yours is really encouraging me to start using mine more often regardless of word count or page length. Thank you for sharing!
I had a personal blog back in the days, started out with selfhtml and went from there. Somewhere on the journey WordPress came out and I transitioned to it. About 2 years ago I started a personal blog about rowing, since I bought a rowing machine. The blog is written in German, yet often people autotranslate it with Google to match their language, since rowing seems to be a worldwide niche topic. You may find it here: https://harder-better-faster-stronger.de
I will check out the London Meetup this wed. Brighton one links to this Wordpress “challenge” https://60minute.site/ and something about etherpad https://etherpad.org/
Finally find this obvious link https://indieweb.org/Getting_Started
I'm not sure why the Brighton one has that link. I'll take a look. The challenge you mentioned -- build (or add to) a site in an hour -- will be hosted in two weeks (see events.indieweb.org for more); last time we had someone make a bookmarks page, a PNG header reader, a game with computer vision (this one was me!), a site on the Gemini protocol, and more.
Etherpad is where we take notes during sessions. It is a collaborative, open source editor.
The rest of my site is close to hand made: https://huy.today/
https://github.com/rumca-js/Django-link-archive/blob/main/an...
Well down the road of this journey myself:
https://www.frankcaron.com/blog.html
Working on killing a lot of JS, albeit my 10 year old Bootstrap theme still has a bunch that's not really necessary.
Will sign up for one of the events, for now feel free to already look at https://Jakobs.dev
Essentially I write whatever I feel like writing about.
site: https://rednafi.com source: https://github.com/rednafi/rednafi.com
It is fully automated! I just need to run one command (earthly --push +deploy --prod=true) to build and deploy