Creating this site was thankfully not a massive undertaking, unlike my previous site and blog. This is largely because this site is created using Quartz, a static-site generator.
Out of the gate Quartz provides almost all of the things this site already has but also the tools and features needed for me to create the website that worked how i wanted it to.
The site is fully created using Markdown files, meaning each page such as Travel Resources starts off as a .md file locally that i edit using Obsidian. Quartz then takes the markdown files and generates them as the equivalent html code and files.
The fact that everything that i write on here being able to be created, used, searchable, and backed-up locally on my computer (and the various backups i have) felt truly important to me. I couldn’t accept to start creating something new where i have to edit in an app or edit my notes on some website owned by someone else, nevermind on a database that i don’t have access to.
Your content, your freedom
A good part of this determination came from Steph Ango’s philosophy of file over app. This notion of having control of your data, not being locked in to any software or platform speaks to me in so many ways.
These are just markdown files, largely just text files. I can edit them using any of hundreds of markdown editors out there, i don’t have to use Obsidian. In fact, a couple of the things on here were created with Typora while i was testing different markdown editors. I don’t have to worry about exporting my content from some app or service if they were every to begin shutting down, or whether its format needs to be converted into something else. It’s truly about having the freedom to control your own data and content.
Once i had set up the basic structure of the site and what goes where, i made sure to create a script that would help me quickly create all the different types of things i wanted to write by using quick templates.
The script asks me a few simple questions to determine the type of content and a couple of things like tags and whether it should appear on lists or not. There is a small variation in the questions asked based on the type of content it is.
A feed of things
One of the few things that isn’t supported by Quartz is the page Things. This page serves as a feed of sorts for various little things like links, quick thoughts etc. I had to create it largely from scratch though to serve as a feed of different things, but i think it is a much needed improvement. While Quartz and sites like this, whether they are more blogs or digital garden types, offer different ways to share content, some of the formats available just doesn’t do justice to the idea of free-flowing thoughts and ideas like the ones that we see on our social media platforms, and it is a form that clearly works.
Previously i used to have a Raycast extension that would serve a similar purpose, share quick links, thoughts, videos, gifs, etc. to my Log that was available via https://log.adan.so but also shared directly to my BlueSky profile. But it was too separated from the rest of my website and i didn’t put much thought into making this more cohesive until i came across Maggie Appleton’s smidgeons feed.
While it serves as a great inspiration i also quickly realised we had different ideas as to the content and purpose. Maggie’s seemed to serve more to her larger ideas and thoughts that was in her Garden, whereas mine was far more loose and intended to capture everything from an interesting photo or a cool video, if not just a quick observation on something. Not specific to any topics or uses.
The Small Things
But there’s also a number of small things i changed up, some of it entirely new but others just making minor changes to.
For example, instead of having the tags of any piece of content show up at the top of the page as just a #tag, i wanted the tags i used to be more meaningful. We all know what a tag is but how it’s used varies. I want to use my tags to indicate what it relates to, but i find it ugly to just refer to it as just a hashtag.
I changed all tags to instead be written as ‘This relates to’ instead of just having the hashtag before it.
The exception to that being in the All Posts page where it made sense to indicate the tag a little more explicitly as it’ll just show a list of notes and such instead.
Out of the box Qaurtz does also show the tags with a # in each tag page, which didn’t make much sense to me. After all, if we’re already on a tag page we do know that these posts use these tags after all. So i made sure to remove any hashtags from individual tag pages.
I’ve also created my own minimal callouts instead of relying on the default callouts, as well as styling any backlinks. Small little details but i always wanted my design to be cohesive and much of it is about being compact and minimal, and even callouts should reflect that.
Then there’s also a couple of image-related changes, namely that i’m currently using the clickable images plugin for Quartz. This enables a lightroom-esque zoom effect for images. Additionally i’ve also created a little component to handle image galleries, specifically when 2 or more images are added next to each other, it enables a tiled gallery layout for easier handling of many images.
Final touches
I’ve written about my ideas for this place and how it should work, and two main ideas were being clear on what goes where but also why i’ve written it.
Each piece also has a “why”; the reason it exists. Some things are to keep, some to remember, some to think through, some to work out, and some to share. This isn’t meant to be about some hierarchy or value. It’s about purpose.
Link to original
This is why it felt right to make sure that most of the things here do show why i created them, so you’ll see in both posts and even various Things that it will say “This is to share” or “This is to work out” based on my intentions.
While i haven’t gone into much detail about how i’ve used AI-assisted coding to help with additional features or functions, i have written about using Cursor although as this site grows and developers, i may revisit this in more detail in the future.
For now though, i am delighted that this is what it is.