Creating a site
Sunday 29 September 2024
Edit on Github
  • Xlog doesn’t require custom structure for your markdown files
  • Default main file name is index.md and can be overriden with --index flag

Create empty directory

Create a new empty directory and cd into it or simple navigate to existing directory which has markdown files

1mkdir myblog
2cd myblog

Run Xlog

Assuming you already went through one of the Installation methods. xlog should be in your PATH. Simply executing it in current directory starts an HTTP server on port 3000

1xlog

Running on a different port

The previous command starts a server on port 3000 if you want to specify the port you can do so using --bind flag

1xlog --bind 127.0.0.1:4000

This will run the server on port 4000 instead of 3000

Using a different index page

Xlog assumes the main page is index.md if you’re working in an existing github repository for example you may need to specify README.md as your index page as follows

1xlog --index README

Notice that specifying the index page doesn’t need the extension .md.

Open your new site

Now you can navigate to http://localhost:3000 in your browser to start browsing the markdown files. if it’s a new directory you’ll be redirected to the editor to write your first page.

Note that pressing Ctrl+S will save the page if you’re in the edit page. and also navigate to the edit page if you’re viewing a page. so you can switch between edit and view mode with Ctrl+S and on MacOS ⌘+S

Generating a static site

You can generate HTML files from your markdown files using --build flag

1xlog --build .

Which will convert all of your markdown files to HTML files in the current directory.

You can specify a destination for the HTML output.

1xlog --build /destination/directory/path

Integration with Github pages

If your markdown is hosted as Gituhub repository. You can use github workflows to download and execute xlog to generate HTML pages and host it with github pages.

Tutorial can be found in Create your own digital garden on Github and Examples can be found here:

Backlinks