Here we go...

Background

So I got the basic blog going, and I though I would use this blog entry to reflect on the initial experience.

I started searching for the best "tool" some time ago. I am using "tool" in quotes as it all depends on the requirements, right? So what was my requirements? In a nutshell, I think the following points qualify:

Online tools

I have looked for and use many different online tools over the years to share some content. They all had their own limitations and there was always some aspect of a tool that I didn't like and that eventually prevented me from using it further.

I don't to name names at this stage, as these very tools are serving thousands of users each day who love the various tools. It just wasn't for me.

Especially in terms of my requirements listed above, I just could not find a single service or tool that does it all. I'm sure I have not tried absolutely every tool out there, but at least most of the mainstream ones.

Workflow... my way...

I am not a professional writer but I am familiar with software development and technical projects. I would therefore also prefer working with tools that I use every day. My editing of these posts are now done in Visual Studio Code in a very familiar environment.

All my posts are hosted on a public repository on Github. In the future I may automate the build and release of site updates using Github Actions.

I can also work offline and experiment in a "safe place" (a separate branch) before committing any content or changes (like themes), ensuring it works before publishing.

Markdown to HTML

There were a number of so called static site generators I tried. Suffice to say, the one in the end that always seemed to just work was MkDocs. It is a really easy to use tool that basically "just works".

The themes available to MkDocs is perhaps not as elaborate as some of the other tools, but it is simple to integrate and easy to maintain. A tool that literally just require a couple of minutes to set a theme and then it's done! The themes are also really easy to customize which is one of the reasons I went for the Cinder theme (version 1.2.0).

Hosting

The final peace of the puzzle was hosting my content. I found that after all the searching, a simple AWS Web Hosting solution was perhaps the best way to go. I opted for the Simple Static Website Hosting solution using S3, knowing that when I started to need more advanced options all the tools were already available in AWS.

Wrapping up

So, the tool set in the end came down to the following:

The setup and configuration of all the elements of the workflow is not 100% complete yet, and I will continue to develop that in the coming days. In the mean time, I am happy that I think I now finally have a long term solution for my very basic needs.

I hope what I shared here could also help other in the future. Feel free to view your opinions in the Disqus comment section, which was also really easy to add to the site!