Brainstorming some Oregano updates

Saturday, September 14, 2024

Now that I'm looking to get back into blogging more than social media, I've been thinking through some of the changes I'd like to make to Oregano (my tiny blogging app) that would make that experience nicer/easier for me. So this is a list of things which, if nothing else, will give me something to blog about:

Image uploading

This is something I've already introduced here on my personal blog, but not in the official app yet. It's been working fairly well so far (save for some hiccups in the Arc browser that I could never figure out), so that would be a pretty easy lift. It's also really only useful for folks who blog like I do (writing in a separate app and sending the Markdown to an API endpoint), so it's not a big priority.

Static HTML generator

Currently Oregano differentiates itself from things like Jekyll or Eleventy by doing all of its generation server-side on request, rather than building a static site all at once at build time. This comes with some advantages like keeping an easily-accessible API for posting and searching, but isn't as nice for folks who just want a one-off site without all the server bells and whistles.

What I might do here is create an on-demand "export" feature that generates the whole blog as HTML and RSS, so that you can take that code and save or host it wherever you like.

Likes

This is something I'll miss most about Cohost: seeing that someone has liked my post, but crucially never having a number of likes ever available.

As of writing, I'm not sure how to implement this within the ethos of Oregano. Ideally it would be something that gets written to a static file, but there's a lot of ways that could look. You've also got to think about persistence for the reader: do I implement cookies (something I've intentionally avoided) so the reader can keep track of what they've liked?

Or do I add a sort of guest book feature: a small input at the end of each post that invites the reader to write their name or a message and click a heart to send it off. Those messages then get collected into a new markdown file, which an authenticated user can request or view at any time. Sort of a blend between likes and comments without risk of your posts turning into a conversation between third parties.

Or, you know, maybe none of the above. There will more than likely a be a few versions of this that end up as branches in the GitHub.

Blogring/Community posts

This is a decently high priority for me as I want to promote other blogs and encourage my friends to stay in touch. What I'm picturing is a place where you can add a list of RSS feed URLs, and Oregano will generate a page with the headline, excerpt, and link to the latest post from each feed.

Maybe more?

Shoot me an email if you've got any feature ideas/requests for Oregano, I'd love to hear from you!