Tldr we want a static website that will last a long time and also look pretty nice.
Right now, we have a wordpress website. It looks very nice. It also have 4 extensions that aren’t configured to auto update. Also whenever I try to make changes to the website they don’t apply because the website was configured via the extensions and I hate it.
I want a static site of some kind. It’s simple to self host or host anywhere, and it’s also simple to secure and keep maintained for a long time.
I am currently looking at static site generators, like quarto, or docusaurus
However, they are difficult to theme to the “niceness” that I want, and their nature results in these somewhat fixed output formats. Like, it is somewhat difficult and annoying to put images anywhere I want them and etc.
Is there like a fixed WYSIWYG html editor? Something between designing a website from scratch and a static site generator. Or is there a way to finagle static site generators to be more flexible than blogs or documentation sites?
I would recommend learning basic HTML CSS and making a website without external tools. This way the maintenance cost is 0 as your website will likely work forever.
Write all your HTML first then your CSS, it will be easier this way. Use vanilla JS if you need to but avoid external libraries , same for php.
To add to this a bit, if the site is just a single page that will be fine. If your site has a bunch of pages that all need to share the same theme and headers and footers and such it may be worth learning a simple templating system that runs before the site is sent for hosting.
That way if you need to update something in the design or theme you can do it once, rather than on dozens of pages.
Personally I use eleventy for my little site.
Hugo or similar
If you want something boring, use a static site generator like Hugo. But you already said you found them restrictive
I built my previous site with Ruby Mustache, an extremely simple templating thing. But I abandoned it because it got hard to maintain.
My current site is plain HTML and CSS. This is the way if you want ultimate customizability. It works pretty good and I would recommend it. Simpler is better.
Remember: Having a website was one of the ways people communicated on the net back in the day. HTML and CSS are intended to be used by regular people, they are very easy to learn. Don’t be scared of them
There is no decent WYSIWYG html editor i know of
So great, signed your guestbook!
Random question, why is index.html just a pointer to home.html?
Oh I completely forgot about this
I was halfway through designing a fake CDE-styled login page, then I failed to fit it in mobile browsers and then I got distracted.
The file is still sitting there https://aesistril.com/login.html
So initially, this login.html was the homepage and home.html was to be reached by clicking a button on this page.
When I scratched the login page idea, I just renamed index.html -> login.html and then linked home.html -> index.html
Well I could’ve just renamed home.html but I am way too UNIX-headed for that. Lets say its a symbolic link so I could change the homepage easily in the future
Quarto and Docusaurus are for documentation. You may be looking for a more general static site generator like 11ty.
The closest you’re probably going to get to a half decent looking WYSIWYG editor is something templatized top to bottom. Odoo, Ghost…things like that.
Static site generators. Jekyll, Hugo, etc. Pick a template, write in markdown.
yeah i was also using hugo and free hosting with github pages, I recommend Hugo or Jekyl as you can host for free in a github repo.
but think twice, the internet is dying, people use social network 5 to 10h a day, dont read blogs and use AI chat more and more. A blog yes but maybe not public anymore, you feed tons of AI Bots and you compete against AI generated blog and avatar.
this page list a lot more issues https://www.waltercedric.com/posts/leaving/
Good luck!
