Tags » blogging about blogging

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  Not all blog posts are created equal

  Splitting my site into “articles” and “today I learned” helped me overcome writer’s block and improve my writing.

• 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.

• Moving my website from Netlify to Caddy

  To avoid getting stung by Netlify’s bandwidth charges, I moved this site to a Linux server running Caddy as my web server.

• A script to verify my Netlify redirects

  I wrote a script that reads my redirect rules, and checks that every redirect takes you to a page that actually exists on my site.

• Making alt text more visible

  I wrote a JavaScript snippet that shows alt text below all of my images, so I can see when it’s missing, and review it while I’m editing.

• Documenting my DNS records

  Exporting my DNS records as YAML gives me a plaintext file where I can track changes, add comments, and feel more confident about managing my DNS.

• 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.

• My custom <picture> plugin for Jekyll

  How I make images that load quickly and look good for readers, and which are easy for me to manage.

• Filtering out bogus requests from Netlify Analytics

  Using redirects to filter out bots trying to hack my non-existent PHP installation.

• A bookmarklet to show which responsive image was chosen

  Debugging my <picture> and <source> tags.

• Beware of transparent backgrounds when using AVIF with ImageMagick 6

  You probably want to use version 7.

• 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.

• A Jekyll filter for adding non-breaking spaces

  A way to avoid awkward line breaks in the middle of phrases.

• A Jekyll filter for obfuscating email addresses

  The original Markdown implementation would do randomised hex/decimal encoding to help obscure email addresses, and I do the same in Jekyll.

• Checking Jekyll sites with HTMLProofer

• Playing with 404 pages