IMPORTANT
This is still work in progress. It doesn't work yet. I pushed it onto github just to have easy access from other computers. (I'm too lazy to make a private repo)
What works, what doesn't?
As this is still a WIP, here is a short list of what works and what still needs work.
- config parsing
- metadata parsing
- basic tests
- parsing markdown
- generating html documents
- some nicer css styles
- more sensible templates
- change yaml style metadata to toml
- cli
- perhaps someday gui?
What is this?
This is a small blog app. Basically a static site generator.
How does it work?
It creates html files from markdown files, then it inserts them into html templates.
How do I use it?
It is very simple.
First you need to compile the program
In /src directory.
make
Then you write some blog posts
Every blog post needs to be in a different file in /posts directory.
Don't forget to put metadata in the header
An example from /examples/post.md
---
[metadata]
author = "joseph"
date = 2026-01-01
title = "Example of a blog post"
tags = ["blog", "test", "lalilulelo"]
---
# This is an example post
In this example we will do a couple of cool markdown things.
## This is a h2 header
*This text is written in italic!*
### Look at this!
**This text is BOLD!**
## Hello world!
## Time to link some random website!
This [should be clickable](https://example.com)
## Image test
## This is an ordered list
1. one
2. six
3. seven
## This is an unordered one
- six
- nine
- six
- nine
You also mustn't forget about creating a config file
In root repo directory.
cp examples/config.toml config/
Then you can edit it for your liking.
Then you just run the binary
In /src directory.
./blog
Finally! Your beautiful site will be in /out directory
From there you can rsync/push it to your server or do whatever you want to do with it.
How does the directory structure work?
Also pretty simple. You have:
/configfor config files. Initially empty so you need to copy it from example dir or make one yourself./examplesexample of configuration files. You can copy it to/configand edit it there./outfor processed site./postshere you write your blog posts. Every file should be in markdown format, metadata included!./srcfor cpp files. Here's where you run the binary to translate your markdown posts into html./stylefor css styling. You can tune it for your liking./templatesfor html templates. The format is pretty simple, so you can edit it, if you like.
Config file explanation
Fields
[general] - General info about your site. Mostly <head> info.
- lang – Language of the blog
- title – Html title of the MAIN site. It will only show in the index.
[contact] - Contact information in the footer.
- author – Your name/nickname/whatever
- email – Your email address | optional
- signal – Signal profile url | optional
Optional means it can be an empty string! Don't remove it from the file.
Example
From examples/config.toml
[general]
lang = "en"
title = "Blog"
[contact]
author = "author"
email = "email@example.com"
signal = "signal url"
Metadata explanation
Metadata is everything at the beginning of the markdown file between ---.
It's also written in toml. Why toml? I already use it's parser so it's easy to implement.
Besides it's readable and easy to write.
Fields
- author – the author of particular blog entry | string
- date – date of writing an entry | date
- title – title of blog entry | string
- tags – tags for blog entry. | array
Example
[metadata]
author = "joseph"
date = 2026-01-01
title = "Example of a blog post"
tags = ["blog", "test", "lalilulelo"]
Why did you do this?
Because I wanted to build something! It's a fun exercise. Besides it's cool to host a blog with your own software.
Dependencies
Catch2framework for unit teststoml++for toml parsingmd4cfor markdown parsing
IMPORTANT NOTICE
The project is developed for Linux only and is not expected to work on other platforms.