Hello world
This project follows the eat-your-own-dogfood philosofy, meaning, there's a need to post product development updates? One needs to first developer product development updates feed.
As everything here yet, it still immature and unpolished. But it works. Pretty clever by the way.
I want this CMS to be as generic as possible but also as simple as possible, as at least for now, it's a one-man-army job. It just cannot be too complex.
The final version of this architecture is a result of a third attempt in this topic.
I made two previous versions following the mental model from what I've already known, so all the Wordpress experiences and more recent Storyblok patterns.
But this wasn't "just right". Like first attempt was to make a "Feed" entity in the system that would act as a configuration of all feeds. But then, how do I render an actual Feed page with list of sub articles?
Like a Blog post feed?
I want it to be a generic website builder, I want the authors to decide how those things are structured.
Feed is just a page
So here we are, here's where I finally made it "simple".
Feed is a normal page, with a "this is Feed" flag. This is a pure UI flag, that only tells other Page composers that their edited Page can be attached to that other Page with a "childOf" reference.
That way, there's one code to compose that Feed main page, currently with just one relevant component "Feed list" (more will follow).
This however, enables the editor, you, to construct your News, or Blog main page with whatever you want. Want to have a list and then some other texts or something? Sure, go for it!
It's quite simple once you get it
The problem I already see with this is that it might be hard to "get" since it doesn't follow any well-known patterns.
However, sometimes it's worth risking breaking the conventions if the result might turn into a really good UX for people who are using it.
Time will tell.
Changes incoming
As you see on the screenshot next to that text, this UI is far from perfection. There are changes coming. I'm using it as a first and only user for now and I'm changing things the moment I feel any inconvienience. For example, I just noticed I need to have away to change components order. That's next in line.
That's the beauty of small, indie, projects.
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If you're interested in reading more about this project, how it develops and where it's going, feel free to follow me on Mastodon or join the waitlist to get an invite once justwebsite.eu goes private beta.
To join the waitlist you need a special code that you will find on my Mastodon. Have to do it that way to fight bad bots.