
Blot – a blogging platform with no interface - firloop
https://blot.im
======
ValentineC
One bonus which isn't obvious on the website: the code's open source [1], and
released under the CC0 licence.

[1]
[https://github.com/davidmerfield/Blot](https://github.com/davidmerfield/Blot)

~~~
nerdponx
Doesnt Creative Commons actively discourage the use of their licenses for
code? I seem to recall seeing something to that effect on their website.

~~~
sirn
Yes, CC0 has not yet been approved as an open source license by OSI.[1][2] FSF
on the other hand, do consider CC0 to be compatible with GPL.[3]

[1]: [https://opensource.org/faq#cc-zero](https://opensource.org/faq#cc-zero)

[2]:
[https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/CC0_FAQ#May_I_apply_CC...](https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/CC0_FAQ#May_I_apply_CC0_to_computer_software.3F_If_so.2C_is_there_a_recommended_implementation.3F)

[3]: [https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-
list.html#CC0](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#CC0)

------
ryanianian
I signed up for this the other day and so far really love it. Write a
markdown/text file in Dropbox and within 30 seconds or so it's published as a
nicely-rendered blog post. As someone who used Jekyll for years and got tired
of running hosting and doing rsyncs etc, this is really nice for personal
blogging.

The usability of the blot.im site itself is a bit lacking. You get a totally
different UI when you're logged in, and the links to documentation on how to
format your posts and what the different dropbox folders mean are gone. I had
to open an Incognito window to find the documentation (spoiler:
[https://blot.im/help](https://blot.im/help)). The service is dead-simple to
use and supports a wide variety of posting styles and formats.

~~~
dmerfield
Glad to hear you like it so far. I’m working on a redesign of the dashboard to
bring it in line with the front-facing site. I know it’s not good enough as it
is and I promise it’ll be fixed.

p.s. I recently added support for git if you’d rather not use Dropbox
([https://twitter.com/Blot__/status/996506149712211968](https://twitter.com/Blot__/status/996506149712211968)).
And as a point of trivia, Blot launched just under four years ago here on HN
in this thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8183498](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8183498)

~~~
robotkdick
Thanks for posting the link to the previous thread. And congratulations! Blot
is a marvel in simplicity.

------
StanAngeloff
The _Account and billing_ section is very refreshing, congratulations. It
somehow answered every question I knew I'd eventually have. Pricing is
predictable, Dropbox permissions are not invasive (no, I wouldn't want to
share my family photos with just about any service out there) and the
subscription renewals process is fair.

------
michaelmior
"no interface" is nice marketing, but of course there still is an interface.
It just happens to be different from what we usually think of as an interface,
but documents placed in Dropbox is still an interface.

~~~
robotkdick
It's dead simple, but you're right everything has an interface. Still I love
how simple it is.

~~~
michaelmior
Definitely not bashing the simplicity. It's not a product for me, but I can
certainly imagine this would be a great solution for many.

------
manemobiili
I recently got a gemini PDA, and i started to look at blogging on this thing.
(basically android phone with physical keyboard)

Two biggest contenders were wordpress and blogger. I don't want a cms for my
blog so blogger made sense, unfortunately it's tied up to google.

Ghost seems compelling, but 20$/month or 5-10$ on other hosting companies is
too much, i won't spend hundred(s) every year on my blog. For now at least.

There is markdown editors on F-droid, and static site generators are viable.

I will definitely look into Blot.

~~~
mxuribe
How have I never heard of this Gemini PA!?! I took a look and it really seems
awesome! It's a tad pricey (I'm referring to the model with wifi only at $499
USD)...but admittedly I am a cheapskate, and I'm sure prices will go down with
increased adoption, economies of scale, etc. ;-) Nevertheless, it really seems
to be an amazing form factor. I could absolutely see this as being my laptop
for the road. Thanks for sharing this!

~~~
fenwick67
Yeah I'm also pretty stoked about this thing, if only it weren't so pricy.

------
tonyedgecombe
I see a lot of people complaining this doesn't support Git. To me this is an
advantage.

Source control is essential for managing code but for handling a few text
files on a blog it's probably unnecessary overhead.

Also most people aren't programmers, there is a large audience who could edit
a markdown file but have no idea what Git is. I'm sure I could teach my mum
markdown in an hour or so but there is no way she could ever grasp Git.

~~~
nickjj
I stopped using git to track my blog (about 175 posts) because a blog tends to
have a lot more than just text files.

There's over 300 jpgs just in blog post related images.

Then I also have a photo gallery where there's about 500x 1920x1080 jpgs.

The .git/ folder ended up taking up gigs upon gigs of space.

~~~
e12e
> 500x 1920x1080 jpgs. > > The .git/ folder ended up taking up gigs upon gigs
> of space.

Sounds very big for 500 small (IE not 10/20 mega pixel) jpegs?

Even at a generous 500k that should be just ~250 mb of that, unless you have
on average four or more "versions" of each image? But I'm assuming the 1080p
jpegs are "prints" and so doesn't change much?

~~~
nickjj
There's only 1 version of each file and they never change. Outside of git it's
not much space but I remember looking at the .git/ folder a couple of years
ago and it was around 4GB.

At that point I blew out the directory and have gone gitless on my blog.

~~~
e12e
On what filsystem? (in case hard links are being mis-counted as copies). Also
note that git for a time was pretty broken re:binary files, but that has sine
been fixed/improved.

~~~
nickjj
I was running xubuntu 14 back then, ext4 with no links. I don't remember the
exact version of git but it was the one that came with Ubuntu's default
package list.

------
firloop
No affiliation but all of my email exchanges with the creator have been
surprisingly helpful and pleasant.

------
p1necone
This is really cool but it kinda sucks that it's tied to Dropbox - I would
like to be able to do something like point it at a git repo URL instead.

Off topic: it would be really nice if there was a common open API for file
sync/share services like Dropbox.

~~~
projectramo
My first thought was the same.

My second thought was: github and Gitlab both have pages which will do this
for you.

This is even easier for people who want to do less.

~~~
dmerfield
Blot recently added support for git, I just haven’t updated the homepage to
reflect this:

[https://twitter.com/Blot__/status/996506149712211968](https://twitter.com/Blot__/status/996506149712211968)

~~~
Jaruzel
While you are updating things. I think it would be good to re-enable the
YouTube controls-bar on the video. I had to drop out of your site and go to
YouTube directly, to be able to watch the video on mute with closed
captioning.

~~~
dmerfield
Have fixed this, not sure what I was thinking.

------
johnchristopher
I used to run something like that at some point. It basically was a Dropbox
account for syncing to a Pi, a python script that monitored changes in a
folder hosted on that Pi and would recompile a harp.js website that would then
be gitted to Heroku.

I still have some sticky fingers from all that glue but it was good time.

------
rthomas6
Don't forget about Netlify coupled with Hugo/Gatsby. It's coupled with Git but
it's really really seamless. Uses markdown, free https, built in CDN, large
community. Just push to master/whatever and your site gets updated. Also for a
blog it's free.

~~~
rojobuffalo
What functionality does Netlify add to a Gatsby project?

~~~
ratsimihah
Hosting, if I understand the stack correctly.

~~~
rojobuffalo
Ok. You can also host a Gatsby project using github-pages.

~~~
ratsimihah
From Netlify homepage:

* Deploy to a redundant network of servers with built‑in continuous integration and HTTPS.

* Manage user identity, HTML forms, and even AWS Lambda functions with ease.

* Use your favorite tools for search, payments, commenting, or content management.

I don't think you can do all that using github-pages. Then again I'd need
hands-on experience to compare further. Let me try it right now :)

~~~
rojobuffalo
GitHub pages does have HTTPS. I can do HTML forms, search, payments,
commenting, and content management without making my project complicated and
without Netlify. I was just curious, not trying to argue. For my use case I
don't need any of that other stuff from Netlify, but thanks for the details.

------
omeid2
Please add an option to pay with Paypal or Stripe Checkout.

I don't think I am the only person who is uncomfortable typing in my credit
card details on various website, even if you're using Strip APIs.

~~~
dmerfield
Understood. It's on the list →
[https://blot.im/updates](https://blot.im/updates) (under payment methods)

------
kreetx
The website's design doesn't work well on mobile (just trying to be helpful).

------
loudandskittish
I seem to recall Dropbox-powered static blog generators being all the rage a
few years back...then they all shut down.

~~~
Reedx
Right you are. Amusingly their about page lists a graveyard of 'em:
[https://blot.im/about](https://blot.im/about)

13 out of 22 are dead.

------
macintux
I switched to Blot when Calepin and Scriptogr.am, similar free services where
I had my blog hosted, were both folding. It was a welcome change to pay for
such a service in hopes it too wouldn't shut down.

Regrettably as is always the case with Markdown-driven services there were
some migration pains, and even more regrettably I haven't actually done
anything with my blog, but I will say that David was great to deal with, gave
thoughtful replies that indicated he recognized the value of my suggestions,
and seems to take a lot of pride in the service.

I think I'm about ready to ditch Facebook after a year's experiment, and I've
been inactive on Twitter for quite some time, so maybe it's time to go old-
school again.

------
mxuribe
This is really great; so simple yet elegant, and quite inexpensive! While I'm
all good for my own personal blogging, I can definitely see me recommending
this to others - especially the less tech-savvy bloggers. And, yes, strangely
enough I get asked more times than one would expect about "Which blogging
platform should I use". I usually tell people to pay for the cheapest
wordpress.com plan or something similar (so i don't have to do "free tech
support" for them). Well, I now have a good alternative for these bloggers.
Kudos to the developers!!

------
bhaak
How is that different than any other static website generator that started way
back with Blosxom and has now grown to a dozens of different generators?

Github pages is also really simple to use, unless you have problems with git.

~~~
retor
I couldn't find an easy way to edit textfiles stored on github from my iPhone
or iPad.

But if you use Dropbox, there are several apps that were made specifically to
write posts and content in Markdown. When you tap into the Dropbox ecosystem,
you gain a lot in ease of use.

------
Goosey
The 'what I'm working on' page was a fun show. I feel like you are honest
about everything on your plan in public which is great. I laughed when I saw
this hidden in the middle:

"Increase price for new customers to $30 a year. This will not affect existing
customers."

Great looking service, I like the use case this enables for blogging from my
phone. Does it render videos in the folder? It would be amazing if it could
sync with a YouTube account and auto upload videos there too (and embed
YouTube in the blog)

------
mortenjorck
This looks _really_ nice. Elegantly simple, and very reasonably priced. I
could easily see Blot carving out a niche with customers for whom the likes of
Squarespace or Wix is total overkill.

------
dorian-graph
[https://getkirby.com/](https://getkirby.com/) is a a good file-based CMS too
that might be of interest to people looking at this.

~~~
ArlenBales
The attraction of Blot appears to be that it's not a CMS. It has no GUI, just
drag-and-drop into Dropbox synced folders.

------
japanuspus
Started setting something like this up several years ago[1], but never had the
time to get it properly off the ground. There are a few existing alternatives
including dropsite.com and paperplane.io, but I always end up missing some
feature.

[1]: [https://github.com/Japanuspus/Site-in-a-
Dropbox](https://github.com/Japanuspus/Site-in-a-Dropbox)

------
Jugurtha
Nice. Wrote something similar a couple of years ago: a shop where products and
categories are folders and files.

[https://github.com/jhadjar/boutique](https://github.com/jhadjar/boutique)

No real features. I wanted to set it up not to forget about it and was also
curious about Google Datastore.

------
2fifty3
Super reasonable cost, looks easier than dealing with my own Jekyll or
something similar. Plan on giving this a spin!

~~~
asdsa5325
If you use a static site generator like Jekyll, you can host a site for free
on github pages.

(Blot looks as easy to use as other static site generators)

------
ArlenBales
I was just looking for a simple blog to log my wilderness backpacking trips.
This workflow is very convenient for phone-only blogging in the wilderness
when Internet is on and off.

1\. Write blogs posts offline and save to Dropbox on mobile.

2\. When you have Internet, sync Dropbox.

------
_bxg1
Seems like it would be easier to set up a basic Node or Python server that
just renders markdown documents from a given directory, then check in your
blog posts as part of your repo and push the whole thing to Heroku whenever
you want to update

~~~
ovao
This seems substantially much more complex than "connect your Dropbox account
and choose a theme".

------
soared
Octopress is similar to this for google drive but I don't think its been
updated in years - no support for custom domains, themes, etc but the idea is
great.

[http://octopress.org/](http://octopress.org/)

------
jxy
You can actually use

    
    
        http://ix.io
    

for blogging too.

~~~
moviuro
No formatting though. Just plaintext.

Could be a big drawback (even my stupid blog has a short CSS file, so that it
doesn't look too ugly:
[https://try.popho.be/simple.css](https://try.popho.be/simple.css))

------
whistlerbrk
PSA: You can run Wordpress headlessly, there are libraries in a few languages
which consume its API to help you render how you want.

You can hate PHP but Wordpress is king for non-technical users.

~~~
acangiano
There are also plugins that generate a static version of WordPress, so you can
run it locally as a site generator and deploy static files anywhere you like.

Agreed on WordPress. In fact, I'm about to start working on the second edition
of my book, Technical Blogging, and I will still recommend WordPress despite
my audience being highly technical. (Of course, I'll discuss the alternatives
as well.)

~~~
reificator
I'm much more likely to continue to update a site in my spare time if it's a
static site on a managed service than if I have to keep on top of security
updates for a web server and a CMS and a backing database and the operating
system(s) underneath it all. It's just too much administration for something I
mildly enjoy doing in the first place.

But your insistence that Wordpress _(possibly as a static gen)_ is worth it
has me interested. Where would you recommend I pick up a DRM-free copy of the
first edition?

~~~
acangiano
I definitely hear your concern and will be upfront on the pros and cons of
each platform.

The DRM-free first edition is here: [https://pragprog.com/book/actb/technical-
blogging](https://pragprog.com/book/actb/technical-blogging)

------
c12
As an author of my own static site generator, I quite like how this one has
progressed. It's good to see some activity in this field :)

------
petepete
Fantastic, so simple and powerful. Great work.

------
bitcoinisqueen
I think they meant to say no _visual_ interface.

If something cannot be interfaced with, then it is non existant

------
ams6110
Would be interested if you plan to support Google Drive for the source files
at some point?

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_nrvs
Feels like the spiritual successor to Indexhibit [indexhibit.org], which is
great!

------
blt
This is a good idea, could be really popular with semi-technical users.

------
darkstar999
Is there a static blog generator with a UI for non-tech people?

~~~
kayamon
Uh... that's what the linked post is.

~~~
darkstar999
No it isn't. By "non tech", I mean not manually fiddling with html and all
that.

------
randerer
All the blog subdomains.blot.im seem to get no https; I have no idea how that
is attractive. Perhaps something to implement, there. Before people consider
to sign up for this.

------
randerer
It looks like all the blogusername.blot.im blogs get no https, as opposed to
the main blot.im site/page.

~~~
dmerfield
You are correct and it will be fixed. The rate limit on LE certificates for
subdomains was too low for my usage. Since LE have recently released support
for wildcard certs, I will be enabling HTTPS traffic on Blot subdomains as
soon as I can.

[https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/acme-v2-production-
envir...](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/acme-v2-production-environment-
wildcards/55578)

------
nvr219
Extremely slick.

------
Sonnie
502, Deathhug.

~~~
dmerfield
Should be fixed now. One of the servers went down and was struggling to
restart under the increased load.

------
bordercases
Beautiful API.

------
edhu2017
would like to see mathjax support

~~~
ryanianian
It supports TeX formatting/notation for math.
[https://blot.im/formatting#math](https://blot.im/formatting#math) It uses
mathjax under the covers.

------
BjoernKW
One cannot not communicate. One cannot not design.

Dropbox is the interface in this case.

------
fiatjaf
All the 7 themes could have been written using pure CSS with the
[https://classless.alhur.es/](https://classless.alhur.es/) standard.

------
Endy
$20 per year seems steep enough to count as outrageous. Especially when
compared to other hosted blog options like WordPress, Blogger, Livejournal,
Tumblr, etc. Heck, if I get a free ".tk" website, with maybe free 5GB web
hosting with WP.org installed and a free 5GB CDN from Cloudinary, I can "self-
host" WordPress for free.

So am I missing a major value-add over any of the above options that makes the
$20 a reasonable cost?

~~~
quickthrower2
You are not paying for the hosting, but for the convenience.

~~~
Endy
Okay, but then I have to ask - how is this more convenient than Wordpress.com
or Tumblr?

~~~
bg0
It's cleaner, you have version controlled dropbox files, edit seamlessly on
your computer using any editor. All the pain points/features are listed on the
site.

