Show HN: Pagoda, a Zen-mode Jekyll blog editor | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Pagoda, a Zen-mode Jekyll blog editor

github.com

36 pointsalagu26 comments

I only had a chance to gloss over it but it looks great. I love the fact that it uses Jekyll and not rails like Obvtse.

Can you use Jekyll plugins?

Does it output a static website?

Is it possible to write the posts using mark down instead of the web editor?

Not so much a question but a suggestion, you should have a version of this hosted on AWS/Heroku so people can see it live.

Can you use Jekyll plugins?

I haven't tested with plugins. But I doubt if it would work. It works great for Vanilla Jekyll with Markdown.

Does it output a static website?

This is independent of your jekyll site generator. What it does is, gives you an editor for your files inside _posts. It understands yaml matter and saves in Jekyll format.

Is it possible to write the posts using mark down instead of the web editor?

The web editor isn't rich text. You edit in Markdown in the web editor. It is an easier way of creating new posts.

Not so much a question but a suggestion, you should have a version of this hosted on AWS/Heroku so people can see it live.

Totally agree. I had thoughts on hosting a demo site. I'll do it.

Would be you interested in teaming up to make a separate project to provide the layout to make your blog look like a svbtle blog? I used to Obvtse but I didn't like it because it the over head of a Rails application.

Apart from svbtle, there are lot of themes that are unique and beautiful (of course with jekyll as backend):

- http://clayallsopp.com/posts/rubymotion-year-one/

- http://paulstamatiou.com/responsive-retina-blog-design

- http://zachholman.com/posts/left/

I think dcurtis should be already pissed off that I ripped his design. So not sure about doing it again :)

This looks very nice, I think I'll be using this to write my blog posts in the future. Just one whinge: Jekyll 1.0 now has support for a _drafts folder. You might want to consider using that instead of 'published'.

Thanks for bringing this up. I haven't upgraded to Jekyll 1.0. Will add this soon.

This looks great, I'm definitely going to give it a try. Thank you!

This is great. I started working on something very similar to this a few weeks ago. Your project is much more mature, so I may end up contributing.

Thanks!

Samesies. Sad but happy to see someone is further along than I was.

If you had this as a hosted service, I'd sign my clients up for it!

That is a good idea. But where do you have your jekyll blog repo? Github?

So I guess "Zen" is SF-hipster for "simple" now?

> So I guess "Zen" is SF-hipster for "simple" now?

Well, if you eliminate or substantially expand the geographical restriction, and consider "now" to be for the last few decades or so, sure.

The route to the usage may be kind of weird, but it hasn't been novel to use "zen" for "simple" or "minimalistic" for quite some time.

wish I wasn't such a noob. good job on the typography and thanks for contributing.

Very cool.

Edit on your android phone: http://blog.teddyhyde.com

Though, I have to say, Pagoda by itself is an awesome project because it supports mobile devices as well.

This is awesome!

<rant>

This "pop" usage of zen hurts my religious sensibilities. zen is about being a lotus in a dirt-pool.

I use a custom aspell dictionary for writing in German.

I use a word count status bar.

I use dumb vim aliases to correct "fro" to "for".

I have aliases for unicode symbols.

I have a single bash function that does the editing and push on save.

Isn't my dumb solution better than yours, for me atleast ?

WTF is so zen about full-screen ?

Why aren't you solving real problems for bloggers, getting heard in a sea of me-too's, separating advertisers(propaganda) from truth.

</rant>

edit: Grammar based correction. I'd pay for that, having corrected some just now :)

This "pop" usage of zen hurts my religious sensibilities. zen is about a being a lotus in a dirt-pool.

I'm sorry about it. I assume the word is also used in a sense of being calm and out of clutter.

Is't my dumb solution better than yours, for me atleast ?

If your solution works for you, it is definitely better. If you think others also would subscribe to your solution, do post it.

WTF is so zen about full-screen ?

IMHO, Zen is not just about fullscreen. It is about how much minimalistic and uncluttered your experience is.

Why aren't you solving real problems for bloggers, getting heard in a sea of me-too's, separating propaganda from truth.

I didn't start this project to solve problems for bloggers, there are plenty of them solving it really well. It is a niche problem that I had.

I didn't start this project to solve problems for bloggers, there are plenty of them solving it really well. It is a niche problem that I had.

This. The startup-oriented audience sometimes forgets that people don't always start a project that scratches a universal itch. Sometimes you just want to make a small bit of your own life better and then share the solution with the world, just in case it helps someone else, too.

> Zen like blog editor for your Jekyll blog, heavily inspired by Svbtle and Obvtse.

What is the problem ?

>> I want to look cool like Svbtle ?

Give the stylesheet away for free.

>> I want to use browser to edit files ?

One important idea of jekyll was to use $EDITOR for blogging.

What about version control ?

> niche problem

sigh

>This "pop" usage of zen hurts my religious sensibilities. zen is about being a lotus in a dirt-pool.

That's not very Zen of you.

Yeah. Read a shitty blog and know all about zen. Overload "zen" to mean cool, hip, minimal.

Advertisers re-defined love as diamonds in 50 years.

Maybe zen will be a styleshit in 2050.

It's a valid observation of what Zen is compared to other Mahayana traditions. A return to the core fundamentals without all the clutter. It doesn't bother me.

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