microblog.py

Simple and stylish text-to-html microblog generator.

Requirements

python3 date make toml curl pycurl urllib

date is date from GNU Core Utilities.
toml is a Python module.
make (optional), method for invoking the script.
curl, pycurl and urllib (optional), for uploading multiple files to neocities (neouploader.py).

Usage

Send three arguments minimum to python. The fourth argument for an e-mail address is optional.

python microblog.py ./template.html ./content.txt

The resulting web page is outputted from standard output. Therefore:

python microblog.py ./template.html ./content.txt >  result.html

Use a Makefile (or another script) to simplify invocation.

cp example/Makefile .

This script generates three text files after operation.

lastfullpage.txt, holds an integer for the last page rendered by the paginator.
updatedfiles.txt, a list of files updated by the script for use in automated uploads.

Configuration

Settings are read from settings.toml. See example/settings.toml.

Writing Content

See example/demo.txt.

The content file is a plain text file of posts. Each post has two types of information: timestamp and message. For example:

Thu Mar 17 11:11:11 PM EDT 2022
Today I ate ice cream.
It was strawberry flavored. 
#TouchingGrass

Thu Mar 16 2:22:22 PM EDT 2022
I took these pictures.
./images/1.jpg ./images/2.jpg ./images/3.jpg

the first line of the file must be empty (newline character only).
the two last lines of the file must be empty
html can be placed in the message for embedded videos and rich text

Anything else

This is a script I wrote for personal use. The output can be seen on https://likho.neocities.org/microblog/index.html. I figure someone else may want to use it for their own personal websites, so it is published.

It works for me and my workflow; therefore, it is simple and involves little lines of code. But I am still open to comments, questions, or suggetions.