So how was this blog built?

You might think that I have signed up to a somewhat expensive blog service, with an ongoing monthly cost to use a blogging system such as GHOST, but you would be wrong. This blog is free to maintain, alongside my main web site and exists as a page on the same server. I.e. no additional monthly cost.

This blog was built using RapidWeaver Stacks. The framework used is the micro framework known as SOURCE from ShakingTheHabitual and one additional stack is used, from inStacks called POSTER2.

What is the POSTER2 stack?

POSTER2 handles all of the building of the code for the pages, creating links, generating the SEO information and the general navigating and searching for content. The blog has been setup using the POSTER2 Freestyle option, which provides a free form or blank canvas approach and this means that any content can be created by building any layout using stacks. One List template has been created and one Detail template has also been created, which are used to populate the text and images for each blog item. Because the Freestyle Template has been used in Poster2, any additional layouts can be added into individual blogs. E.g. an image gallery or slider could be added into a post. Every part of the blog list and the blog posts can be created to be what you want, instead of the normal pre defined fixed template options.

To add a new blog item, the process I use, is to duplicate the last blog item, add the new image and text and the new changes are published using RapidWeaver Stacks. What you are reading now, is created in Markdown which can optionally, be loaded from a remoteserver as text files.

Note that this blog has been setup to create and edit blog content using my Mac. There is no facillity to edit using an App, although I prefer to sit and concentrate at a proper keyboard and decent sized screen. The final process is just a quick RW publish the go live with new content.

What is the SOURCE micro framework?

SOURCE is a collection of stacks, which are essentially really clever building blocks, that run on the SOURCE framework. In essence, SOURCE provides the power to create the type of layouts that are just not possible elsewhere in a RapidWeaver Stacks type of web building app.

SOURCE is micro in the sense that it is tiny compared to other frameworks that load up all sorts of stuff that you rarely or never use. As a result there are just a handful of SOURCE stacks to learn how to use and SOURCE has hands down the best text based documentation in the form of the SOURCE Workbook, there is the SOURCE Training Accademy and also there are more Projects created for SOURCE than any other Stacks Framework.

SOURCE + POSTER2 integration

Both ShakingTheHabitual and inStacks have worked toegether to provide a level of integration between SOURCE and POSTER2. E.g. POSTER2 generates the blog content into a SOURCE CSS GRID display.

There will be more blogs about SOURCE, but it is used here to create the general layout and layouts for the blog content, and above all to make this blog as fast as posible and achieve a 100% Google PageSpeed result.