So, I said that I was going to be using WordPress and not using OctoPress but after I got things all set up back in WP, I found the experience of writing to be kind of frustrating. I’d written some post drafts in Markdown, and have really been enjoying that format. I also don’t like not having version control in play. I was able to use Markdown for my WP posts, but having to edit in Vim and then copy/paste over and preview, it got kind of annoying.
While OctoPress is definitely a bit more manual than something like WP, it turns out that I’m okay with that. I’ve taken a little time in the evenings after my brain is burnt out on other things and used it to poke and prod OctoPress into doing what I want. This new site is the end result.
Additionally, I figured out how to adjust my nginx settings such that any missing files are now going to redirect to a mirror of my old site, so I’m basically making a clean break. For the first time in over a decade, the folder that houses RandomThink.net is basically clean. Feels good, if a little scary for some reason.
To provide a bit more detail, I’m using the 2.1 branch of Octopress. After some discussions on Twitter, it sounds like 2.1 was basically good to go except for migrations from 2.0. Since I’m not reusing the brianarn@github experiment, no issues there.
I’ve found that OctoPress 2.1 offered some nice things, like the “Respectfully Social” setting, wherein the Tweet / FB / G+ links at the bottom of each post are really just basic links and not the full awful weight of their various APIs. It also felt way easier to specify a few things, such as having a landing page that isn’t just the blog posts.
It was also fairly easy to set up where my feeds and all should exist, and as such, the main links to individual blog posts, the main blog page, and the RSS should all just work. I think.
While I’m still very obviously using the OctoPress theme, I’ve made some customizations. I’ve taken the gradient out of the link bar above, and I really like how clean that looks. I’ve shrunk the sidebar a bit. I’ve also completely reset my font choices (while still using the Google webfont service).
- Monospace: Source Code Pro. I’ve been using it in Vim and iTerm 2 for awhile, and I’m really quite a fan.
- Sans-serif: Varela Round. There was just something about it that I liked.
- Serif: Andada. Honestly, I picked this one because Google webfonts suggested it as a pairing with Varela Round. I tried some others, and this one was the best.
I ran the fonts by Evan and he seemed to approve, and he’s my font authority, so I trust that it looks okay.
I’ve also brought my old landing page over because I’m kind of attached to that stupid mockup image now.
I’m now doing all my blogging through Vim and using git to version control it all, and pushing the full site source up to GitHub as well. That means that all my everything for the full site is going to be in source control. Feels good, man.
Now to finally finish that “Callbacks vs. Promises” post that I’ve been stewing on for a month.