Smallweb Chatter Post

[kalloway]

Well February just raced on by, didn't it? How are things going for you, smallweb?

Comments

[althea_valara]

I launched my Neocities site in January, and updated it some in February! Don't think I had mentioned it here yet, so here it is: https://altheavalara.neocities.org

I'm using Jekyll as my static site page manager. Jekyll allows you to break the repetitive pieces of your website out into "includes" files, so you don't have to write the same code over and over in places. Example: my flyover menus are an "includes" - as they are quite lengthy, it'd be a pain to put that on EVERY page manually, and that'd be prone to errors!

Another nice thing about Jekyll is that it accepts markup languages besides HTML. I'm still using HTML for most of my stuff, but the menus are in YAML (Yet Another Markup Language).

When I launched my site, I intended to make a post here in smallweb with a tutorial on how to do so, but had some issues with formatting it so the code would appear properly here. So the tutorial is hosted on my site: https://altheavalara.neocities.org/jekyll_tutorial

I hope that helps others building static sites or blogs!

[larissa]

Not much from me this month, though I did make some progress on content writing for a new website. I wrote about it a little here but the concept is that it's a site about all the things I like that I don't want to make individual websites for. Kind of a little collection of all my favorite things. Unfortunately I am TOTALLY stuck on the layout, but the content is going well — I have 9 pages written and will probably add a few more before I open it.

[quailmail]

What's a good place to start with the small web? I've been interested for a while but I'm having trouble getting involved.

I've attempted making a few sites so far but none really came to fruition. I know how to code, so it's more along the lines of not knowing what to make. Since I work in web development I'm finding it hard to get out of the website as a brand headspace, but I want to rekindle some of the joy I had building for and exploring the web when I was younger.

[supermario128]

I made a Neocities website and have been working on it a fair amount recently: https://supermario128.neocities.org/

I’m a beginner with regards to HTML and especially CSS—most of what I knew about HTML coming in was from writing Dreamwidth posts in casual HTML, and I knew nothing about CSS—so it’s been a learning experience. Still, it’s been fun.

Some to dos I have is adding more of my writing to the site, figuring out how to do CSS so that the site doesn’t look bad on phone and figuring out how to do dropdown menus such that they work with the sidebar navigation I have.

EDIT: Forgot to say thanks for the link to HTML For People in the sticky. It really helped with starting my website.

[tarlanx]

I've not made time to get anything done!

[a_natural_beauty]

So far good overall. I've been reading a-lot and getting back into working on my postal stamp collection. :)

[kalloway]

Absolutely nothing in this last $timeperiod, but I look forward to getting back to things. ^_^

[aleteoryx]

not bad! I added more buttons to my site, and have been slowly adding more to the free-form section I added recently. I think making that has been one of my best recent decisions, cause it gives me a place for more miscellaneous things. my current project is to put up an archive of all the documentation I can find for the IrDA consumer infrared standards.

I also setup a proper backup system for the contents of my site, which was long overdue. it even does snapshots so I can see what it was like in the past!

[requiems]

I've actually done a lot this month! Mixture of inspiration and having to listen to a lot of continuous, 24/7 roadworks noise and the only distraction thing my brain had going for it was layout design and graphics making. I made many, many functional layouts for upcoming projects; now I just have to slowly work on writing them.

As for visible, uploaded stuff, I rehauled my primary domain after nine years into a button wall for quick exits out across my network, gave my joined fanlistings page a new look and went through all of them for dead links/those that had moved, and spent a week making over a hundred different images for Beloved, a visual list of characters that mean something to me (plus some bonus pages where I talk about when I got attached and why it is I like them so much - I'm hoping to add more slowly over time).

I'm almost done with a very wordy tribute for one of my favourite characters; I finished writing it in early February and have been working on edits intermittently since then. I'm planning to open Deadlock Rebel very soon.

[fred_mouse]

I managed zero progress, despite having put a ridiculously small goal on the wishlist. I think I need to revisit the way I'm remembering goals, because I managed to completely forget.

[nepenthee]

I started the year with a revamp of my guestbook, which completes the revamp of my main site from the end of 2024. It feels SO good to have such long-standing plans out of the way that I have resolved to get site projects that have been in the works for years ready for launch as soon as possible (i.e. they should be presentable and substantial, but not necessarily complete), to finally get them out of the system.

To follow through, I spent much of January and February working on Vanishing Moon, a small shrine and media gallery to the character Irisviel from Fate/Zero. It's a leftover shrine project from 2016, which had been so close to completion that it would have been a pity not to finish it so as to share it. To motivate myself, I aimed for launch on Valentine's/during Femslash February, and ultimately managed to finish the essentials (1–2 pages left to do). The merchandise collection page was particularly fun to make.

For long-term project organization, I finally consolidated all of my oooold notes from a vast amount of Evernote pages into a Notion database, with projects sorted by priority and progress/status. I think it'll help me focus on what to work on next, rather than juggling so many site projects and not getting anything done for lack of focus.

Now, I'm taking it easy without self-set deadlines, and playing an old video game for fun (while taking notes for a future shrine...).

[enchantedsleeper]

I really want to get back on the archiving bandwagon this month, maybe with some teeny-tiny achievable goals. I just finished writing a bunch of drabbles for the February Small Fandoms Drabblethon, so, maybe drabble archiving would be a good starting point.

It's marchmetamatterschallenge again, which last year was really good for getting me to add to my site, but I don't produce a lot of new meta, so I've mostly run out of meta to archive now. I think there's one new thing for me to archive since last March.

I also learned about a new personal fanworks archive directory that has just started up, made by le_gaosaure! https://fan-archives-directory.nekoweb.org/