simple_blog is a basic blogging platform. It is designed to be a straightforward way to publish articles written in Markdown and display them using a renderer written in PHP. There is no login page or any way to manage simple_blog from the web. All management is done via the command line. This can be done with a shell script or with the python based simple_blog_cms.

Requirements

Currently tested with PHP 7.4
Some shell access is necessary.
- The recommend way is via ssh.
- I don't see a technical reason it can't work with a web manager like cPannel or Ajenti as long has you have the ability to upload files and manage files.

Publishing

Publishing can be done manually or with a script that accomplishes the following tasks.

Create a directory under /blog/by_year/$CURRENT_YEAR/$CURRENT_MONTH/
- For a post in January of 2022 this would be /blog/by_year/2022/01/
- The directory should start with a numeral otherwise it will be sorted alphabetically
Place a file named article.md containing the MarkDown formatted text of the article in the directory created in the previous step
Copy or symlink /common/index.php into the directory created in step 1
Place a file named tags containing a comma separated list of tags for the article in the directory created in step 1
Add the article's relative path and title to /by_tag/tags.csv under the appropriate headings.

The recommended method is to use simple_blog_cms

Article Tags

Per-article List

A file named tags is placed in the directory for each article. It should contain a comma separated list of tags being applied to the article. This will be parsed and displayed by /common/md_read.php at the bottom of the article.

by_tags

This folder contains an index file that displays an article list generated by parsing the tags.csv file. A format example is displayed below.

"PHP"	"JS"	"Religion"	"Catholic"
"/blog/by_year/2021/10/03_Forcing_Elements_to_reload/"	"/blog/by_year/2021/10/03_Forcing_Elements_to_reload/"	"/blog/by_year/2021/10/reproduction_of_Gainer_Bishop_Ronald_4-1-16/"	reproduction_of_Gainer_Bishop_Ronald_4-1-16/"
"Forcing page elements to reload"	"Forcing page elements to reload"	"Open Letter to Bishop Ronald Gainer"	"Open Letter to Bishop Ronald Gainer"
"/blog/by_year/2022/06/28_A_Test_Post/"
"A Test Post"

File Descriptions

blog

Contains the blog articles. The articles are placed in subdirectories of by_year according to the year and month they were published.

├── by_year
│   ├── 2021
│   │   ├── 12
│   │   └── index.php -> /path/to/common/index.php
│   ├── 2022
│   │   ├── 01
│   │   ├── 02
│   │   └── index.php -> /path/to/common/index.php
│   └── index.php
└── index.php  -> /path/to/common/index.php

common

This directory contains the files and libraries used to render the site's pages.

Composer files

composer.json
composer.lock
/common/vendor - Stores the composer files and libraries managed via composer.

CSS

styles.css - The main site CSS.
jmenu.css - Used to render the responsive menus.
print.css - Used to style printed pages.
gallery.css - Styles the floating

JS

font_size.js
page_format.js - The main JS file used for formatting and adding extra functions to pages.
gallery.js

PHP

footer.php - The common page footer. Contains copyright information and links to the license.
get_month_name.php - Translates a numeral month into the corresponding name. I.E. 01 into January.
h1_month.php - Adds the proper <h1> heading based on the location of the
header.php - The common page header.
index.php - The index file used for most of the pages on the site.
markdown.php
md_read.php - Renders Markdown files and adds
menu.php - Generates the blog menu items in the navigation menu.
modal.php - Adds the modal <div> for displaying the image pop out.
page_menu.php - Generates a menu from the files and directories where it's run from.
page_menu_table.php
path_menu.php

/common/error_pages/

/common/403.php - The 403 not allowed page.
/common/404.php - The 404 page.
/common/500.php - Displayed for all HTTP 500 errors

/common/imgs/

Images used site wide.

cursor.gif - Blinking cursor used on the front page.
icon-rss.png - RSS icon

/common/prisim

Files for the prism syntax highlighter.

license

This directory contains all the licensing information for simple_blog. simple_blog is licensed under the GPLv2 but uses components that are licensed under the MIT Open Source license. These components are:

index.php

Displays all of the reverent license and the components they apply to.

simple_blog is licensed GPLv2. This cannot be changed.
Default license for articles published. This is Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License by default. This licensed can be changed however the site admin wishes.
Jmenu is licensed MIT. This cannot be changed.
Parsedown is licensed MIT. This cannot be changed.
Parsedown-extra is licensed MIT. This cannot be changed.

Copies of all these licenses can be found in the /license/ directory.