Blogging about blogging
I bought the domain name alexwlchan.net in November 2014, and I’ve been writing here ever since. These are the meta entries about the process of writing this blog.
14 articles
Swapping gems for tiles
I’ve replaced Jekyll with Mosaic, a Python-based static site generator that I wrote just for me.
Parody posters for made-up movies
I rented movies from Blockbuster, HBO Max-Width and Netflex.
Doing my own syntax highlighting (finally)
I’ve redesigned my syntax highlighting scheme to use a smaller colour palette. Here’s what I’ve changed, how it works, and why I think it’s better.
Minifying HTML on my Jekyll website
I compare three different approaches to minifying HTML.
A flash of light in the darkness
If you’re using an image as your background, remember to set a fallback colour as well, especially if you’re in dark mode.
An unexpected lesson in CSS stacking contexts
While trying to add some simple overlay labels, I stumbled into a sharp edge of a complex CSS feature called “stacking contexts”.
Cosmetic updates to this site
I’ve simplified the palette, changed the font, and given several elements a more consistent visual appearance.
Good embedded toots
I replaced Mastodon’s native post embeds with lightweight HTML and CSS snippets that are faster to load, more resilient to outages, and support dark mode – and I had fun doing it.
Getting faster Jekyll builds with caching in plugins
I was able to build my Jekyll site much faster by using the built-in caching API.
Ten years of blogging
A decade ago, I registered a domain and started writing.
A surprise smattering of stardom
My last post was surprisingly popular; a few reflections on the experience.
A tale of two Twitter cards
Some recent changes I’ve made to fix or improve my Twitter cards.
Prevent accidentally copying the prompt character in console code snippets
When I include console commands in a blog post, I don’t want somebody to accidentally copy the command prompt. CSS lets me avoid that.
An editing toolbar for alexwlchan.net
A bookmarklet that gives me a just-for-me toolbar to make changes to this site.
2 notes
How to highlight Python console sessions in Jekyll
Adding a couple of options to the
consolelexer (console?lang=python&prompt=>>>) gets you syntax highlighting for a Python console session.Use the
{% raw %}tag to describe Liquid in LiquidIf you’re trying to write about using Liquid tags in a Liquid-based site, wrapping your tags in the
{% raw %}tag will prevent them being rendered.