The Poetry Book is a fast and easy system for quickly making your own book of poems. You can also use it as the basis for building highly interactive websites, apps or game interfaces.
All the content for the entire book exists as a single markdown document. Markdown documents are quick and easy to read and write, and don't require any technical skill to create. The Poetry Book uses the markdown document to figure out how the website should be organized. This is all done automatically using JavaScript - you don't have to worry about it. Just drop your markdown file into the Poetry Book's home folder, and the navigation bar and content pages will be automatically created. Fill the content pages with anything you like, as much as you like. Completely change the layout and design with CSS. Drop the Poetry Book project folder into any webserver, and you're done. There's nothing to configure or install, no complex dependant technologies, and no command-line-anything. It's a new way to think about websites and interactive content using the most basic technologies available.
If you like, you can completely customize the css code to create entirely new and original layouts and designs based on this system. It will work on any platform, anywhere. There is only one content file, so it's extremely easy to manage and displays pages instantly. If you keep things simple, this might be all you need to build a small to medium-sized personal website, portfolio gallery or focused app.
Or, just make a poetry book.
View the live demonstration for a full, interactive explanation of how to use and customize The Poetry Book.
Why The Poetry Book is cool:
- All the content exists as a single, easy-to-read markdown file.
- There are no moving parts, so nothing can break.
- Content pages display instantly because they all exist in that single file. The browser doesn't need to make continual http requests to a server for each page.
- You can manage the entire website offline, without needing a CMS or database. You can do it in Notepad.
- Minimal, uncluttered content management using markdown so that it's extremely easy to add and customize content by hand. Just use your text editor's search capability (Ctrl-F) to find what you're looking for.
- When you want to update your website content, just make some changes to the single markdown file.
- Use this same code as the foundation for building a mobile app (with CocoonJS), or a desktop app (with node-webkit), or for quickly building a GUI for a game.
- Completely transportable. Just drop the same files into any webserver anywhere, and it will work exactly the same without any configuration or installation. Keep your whole website in your back pocket.
- Low-tech, high-performance, and extremely easy to maintain.
- Command-line nothing. Way faster an easier to use than other static website creation frameworks like Jekyll. Prettier, leaner and easier to use and customize than Ghost.
- Less is more!