Excursions

I have settled onto an easy workflow for publishing newsletters with Micro.blog. Another issue for Excursions Weekly went out today and the editing process was the most frictionless till date. I do wish though that there was an archive of the issues that I could share with the subscribers so that they know what they are signing up for.

Also, unfortunately the issue with the replies bouncing back has still not been fixed. Without that, I have no way to connect with the readers.

The way things stand, the support for newsletter in Micro.blog is extremely bare today. But the workflow remains one that I am most comfortable with. I just wish a few things were different and better.

I have released a new version 1.0.2 of the Paper theme today, which addresses the reported issues and suggestions since the first release yesterday. Here are the changes, in brief.

• Added support to include replies on individual posts
• Added the configuration of social icons as plug-in setting
• Updated the styling to display categories along with posts
• Updated documentation to include installation steps
• Fixed styling of images on smaller screens

You can go to the Plug-ins section in Micro.blog and click “Upgrade” once the option is available. You will have to reconfigure (for the last time, hopefully) the social IDs in the settings of the plug-in. No need to modify the config.json, anymore. This also means the configurations will not be lost during the future upgrades.

I am thrilled with all the feedback that I have received. Paper is a beautifully designed theme, something I can take no credit for. At the same time, I am glad I could make it simpler for others to adopt it.

After playing around briefly to understand how to bring a theme made for Hugo to Micro.blog, I have finally ported one that I love. Today, I am ready to share it with the Micro.blog community. The theme is called Paper and goes with a tagline “simple, clean, flexible”. You can check for yourself in the screenshot below, or see it live at my test blog.

I am a big fan of clean themes that are minimal, yet impressive. Paper is one such theme — I had used it earlier when I was hosting this blog with Hugo. Although it looks minimal, it isn’t so in the way it works. It has a simple, yet signature header, a built-in dark mode support with a beautiful toggle and a clean black & white look.

I have added the first version of this theme to the plug-ins directory so that you can install it directly as a plugin. It works with both Hugo versions that Micro.blog supports (0.54 and 0.91) [Update]: An issue was reported while using the theme with Hugo version 0.54. So, until further update, the theme supports only version 0.91 of Hugo. However, here are a few points to remember before you install the theme.

Uninstall any theme that you have installed as a plugin. Set you current theme to blank and Hugo Version to 0.91 in the design section of your blog. Make sure there are no other conflicting custom CSS configured for the previous theme. Then install the Paper theme from the plugin directory. Once the theme is successfully installed, you can configure the social icons displayed in the header by modifying the available options in config.json.

There’s already a brilliant selection of themes available for Micro.blog and I am excited to see the support grow further with every passing day. I hope you like this and a few folks benefit from it. If you do, I would love to hear from you.

I verified today that the Post Stats Micro.blog plugin works with the upgraded Hugo version (0.91). So, that’s one less issue I need to handle as part of the next upgrade. However, if you are using the plug-in (I am glad) and see an issue, please let me know.

Back to work on what I had originally planned.

After a few busy weeks, it’s good to be back reading the timeline at M.b again. The inspiration to write, to tinker, to create, to reflect is contagious; and the M.b timeline is full of that.

I am happy with the second issue of the weekly newsletter that I sent out today. The minimal styling that I had recommended last week seems to have helped it. Sure, it was still some work to restructure a few things. But it was worth it. I also fixed a few minor issues.

I decided against replacing my theme with something entirely new. I have too many custom components baked in currently that I don’t have time to replicate afresh. Plus, all the feedback from folks helped me convince myself that what I have is good enough.

But, I have refreshed a few aspects in the existing theme. As advised by Khalid, I started with a typeface and replaced it with a serif one. It looks a lot bolder to me. A few clean-ups around accent colours. And a lot of moving stuff around.

What I have, thus, is something that looks different, yet is the same. The journey is incomplete yet, there are many ugly corners that need clean-up. But I will get to those as time permits.

An inner monologue around my site’s theme to follow. I have grown bored by looking at my current theme. Not that I don’t like it, it just needs a reset. This has been how the site looks for a couple of years now. It looks so bland. Not playful. Not personal. There is no character.

Over the year, I have added so much stuff to the theme. It does not, at all, resemble what I started with. It feels hacky all around. I have realised I can’t create anything polished, so I prefer not to build something totally custom. I prefer anything that comes ready-made. But that’s tricky as these are still early days for theming with Micro.blog. I like a couple, but neither is perfect. Shall I start with one and personalise in limit? Do I want to take the project up?

I know, I know. “It is the words that matter and not what’s around.” & “Make the content beautiful, not the container” & blah blah.

I get it. That’s the writer in me speaking. But the developer in me is craving for change. Can I hold him back?

With another tumultuous year coming closer to end, it was time to start reflecting back. As I did last year, my Now page is the best place to start. I updated it one last time this year. Over to review how I spent the year, always wonderful to read the strikethrough entries.

Now that there is a better support for drafts and scheduling posts in Micro.blog web interface, I can’t believe it didn’t exist till now. It was refreshing to hear Manton acknowledhe the same during Micro Monday. That said, I wish I could directly schedule a post from the web editor rather than saving as draft followed by schedule, as it is now.