Bitter - a minimal blog engine

Waste everything but Git and Markdown

Demo (in other words, my blog)

Features

• Publish entry by "git push"
• Write entry in Markdown
• Suitable for text content
• Pure Node.js server
• Simple code base that you can easily hack on

Requirements

• Node.js v0.10.0 or later
• "git" command

Install

On the server side, do as follows. Replace "blogdir" with your desired directory.

$ npm install -g bitter
$ mkdir blogdir
$ cd blogdir
$ bitter setup

Then start the server. Specify listen port with environment variable PORT.

$ PORT=1341 bitter server

On the local machine, clone blogdir/notes.git.

$ mkdir localclone
$ git clone user@host:blogdir/notes.git localclone/notes

To post an entry

In the cloned repository on the local machine, write an entry in Markdown with your favorite editor, then save it as year/month/date-slug.md. Do git push to publish it.

$ mkdir -p 2013/05
$ echo "# Test\n\nHello World" > 2013/05/27-test.md
$ git add .
$ git commit -m "add test entry"
$ git push origin master

To edit an existing entry

On the local machine:

$ vim 2013/05/27-test.md
$ git add -u
$ git commit -m update
$ git push origin master

To delete an entry

On the local machine:

$ git rm 2013/05/27-test.md
$ git commit -m delete
$ git push origin master

To embed static files

Put your static files under the directory that entry resides. Those files can be referred to by relative path. For example, to embed 2013/05/images/winter.jpg, write following code in 2013/05/27-test.md.

![Winter photo](images/winter.jpg)

If you put static files under "public" directory, those files can be referred to by absolute path. For example, to embed public/images/spring.jpg:

![Spring photo](/images/spring.jpg)

To view entry on local machine

First, install Bitter on local machine.

$ npm install -g bitter

Then clone notes.git from server as bare repository.

$ mkdir localblogdir
$ cd localblogdir
$ git clone --bare user@host:blogdir/notes.git

cd to notes.git, and do bitter gitconfig.

$ cd notes.git
$ bitter gitconfig
created ../notes for worktree
successfully configured

Now notes directory has set up automatically.

$ cd ..
$ ls
notes notes.git

Run the server.

$ PORT=1341 bitter server
[Sat Jun 01 2013 05:48:08] indexing...done (10 ms)
[Sat Jun 01 2013 05:48:08] Server started on port 1341

Open http://localhost:1341/ with a browser.

Then add that local repository as remote.

$ cd localclone/notes
$ git remote add local ~/localblogdir/notes.git

After you commit some changes in localclone/notes, do git push local master to apply it to local machine, and do git push origin master to apply it to the server.

$ git push local master
(Now commits are applied to local machine)

$ git push origin master
(Now commits are applied to the server)

To write and preview a draft on local machine

Create a branch for a draft in your repository.

$ cd localclone/notes
$ git checkout -b draft

Do some commits, then push that branch to local.

$ git push local

Also checkout the branch in localblogdir/notes.git.

$ cd localblogdir/notes.git
$ git checkout draft

config/config.json parameters

siteName (string) The name of the site.
siteURL (string) Base URL of the site.
authorName (string) Author's name.
authorLink (string) URL that is linked from author's name.
authorEmail (string) Author's email address.
homepage (string) Front page style. "default" or "recents" can be specified. Default value is "default".
numRecents (number) Number of entries in /recents and Atom feed. Default value is 15.
numHomepageRecents (number) Number of entries in front page. This is valid only if homepage is set to "recents". Default value is 5.

To effect changes of config.json on the server, commit config.json and push it.

config.json example

{
  "siteName"   : "MyLittleBlog",
  "siteURL"    : "http://blog.example.com",
  "authorName" : "Nanashino Bombay",
  "authorLink" : "http://example.com/",
  "authorEmail": "you@example.com",
  "homepage"   : "recents",
  "numRecents" : 15,
  "numHomepageRecents": 5
}