My va­ca­tions end to­mo­rro­w. So, the ti­me to spend ha­cking fun, per­so­na­l, free stu­ff is going to be li­mited be­cau­se of the ti­me spent co­ding fun, free stu­ff for mo­ney. So, I de­ci­ded to fi­nish wi­th a bit of whi­ms­y.

I im­ple­men­ted a com­ple­te­ly clien­t-­ren­de­re­d, one-UR­L, dy­na­mic blo­g. Whi­ch is ac­tua­lly to­ta­lly sta­ti­c.

In fac­t, that blog is this blo­g, just wi­th a twis­t. If you go to this URL you wi­ll see wha­t's ba­si­ca­lly this ve­ry si­te, wi­th co­m­men­ts and eve­r­y­thing as usua­l. But if you cli­ck on "Pre­vious Pos­t" ... we­ll, it sta­ys in the sa­me pa­ge, even thou­gh it dis­pla­ys a di­ffe­rent post :-)

The ma­gic is the new, ex­pe­ri­men­ta­l, dy­na­mic ta­sk_­mus­ta­che plu­gin for my sta­tic si­te ge­ne­ra­to­r, Niko­la. whi­ch does the fo­llo­win­g:

1. Ren­­ders post da­­ta as JSON fi­­les in­s­­tead of HT­­ML

2. Crea­­tes a HT­­ML fi­­le that is rea­­lly a mus­­ta­­che.­­js te­m­­pla­­te

3. Crea­­tes a HT­­ML fi­­le wi­­th so­­­me bi­­ts of Ja­­va­s­­cript that loads the te­m­­pla­­te and the newest po­s­­t's da­­ta.

4. If you ac­­ce­ss that mus­­ta­­che.h­t­­ml wi­­th a fra­g­­men­­t, it uses that to fe­­tch JSON da­­ta and rew­­ri­­te itse­l­­f.

And tha­t's it. It ac­tua­lly loads fas­t, and re­ge­ne­ra­tes ve­ry fas­t, sin­ce it does mu­ch le­ss than the real si­te. The­re are a bun­ch of things that wi­ll dump you out of the "d­y­na­mi­c" si­te, like tag li­nks, and whate­ve­r, but it wo­rks sur­pri­sin­gly we­ll (and if you want to the­me it, it's just one tem­pla­te).

This is the first of a new kind of thing for Nikola, the "extra plugins". Basically, stuff that is too weird, specific or useless for the general distro, will go there, and to use those plugins, you have to create a plugins/ folder in your site and add it there manually.

En­jo­y!