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Constantina

A dynamic-content blog platform

Justin Cassidy, July 2021

Overview

Constantina is a single-page static site generator designed to randomize content for grazing. It's written in Python, and was originally written to host my music and technology site, Codaworry.

Changelog

  • 0.7.0 - Sunsetting auth and separate app support for easier blog maintenance
  • 0.6.0 - Migrated to Python 3 for better performance and pervasive Unicode support
  • 0.5.6 - Separated out security-oriented configuration for file monitoring purposes
  • 0.5.5 - Forum settings forms and cookies, X-Sendfile trampolining for private media
  • 0.5.3 - For private files, added caching headers and fixed paths with spaces
  • 0.5.2 - Move images to private, make search non-AJAX to better support auth checks
  • 0.5.0 - Install from setup.py, authentication features test-released
  • 0.4.5 - Under-the-hood "sub-application" support, fixed search index generation
  • 0.4.0 - First public release

Features

  • Single-page single-column infinite-scroll layout
    • Layout responsive for any screen size or orientation
    • Infinite scroll falls back to a "click to load" for legacy browsers
  • Page consists of a series of cards
    • Card content is either short HTML snippets, or raw images/music files
    • Add content to a folder, and it will publish upon the next page load
    • News cards contain Permalinks for external linking
    • Future-dated news only publish after their timestamp
    • Page layout and card types are easily configurable
  • Search feature for cards with text emphasis
    • Uses whoosh text-search library on the backend
    • Unindexed text cards get indexed any time content is searched
    • Supports keyword searches as well as "#cardtype" searches
    • Supports ''encyclopedia'' cards that only appear in search results
  • Three colorful themes, and straightforward HTML/CSS to make new ones

How It Works

Roughly 20 cards are displayed upon initial load, and Constantina considers this a ''page'' of content. No additional cards are loaded until the reader scrolls further in the viewport, or submits a search in the search bar.

Each card presents content stored in one of Constantina's content folders. Each content folder has a file naming convention and specific rules for how the content appears in the Constantina layout.

News items always have unix-timestamp names, and appear in reverse-time order, newest to oldest. Pictures and interjections are randomly-distributed through the pages, with guaranteed spacing. Songs and advertisements appear once per ''page'', randomly distributed. Finally, there are a handful of special cards, such as headers, footers, and tombstones that assist or alert about any pagination activities or page state.

Usage and Lifecycle

Constantina is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License. I've been using it for three years, and if you decide to use it, I'd love your help in making it better.

Constantina is a Python web application, and running it requires solid knowledge of Unix tools (ssh or sftp, Python, uwsgi). If you have basic footing in these technologies, try setting up an instance yourself!