logo Emad Elsaid
Xlog
Sunday 20 November 2022
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#sideproject

I wanted to write my notes in text format. my options were:

  • Web Service
    • Google doc
    • Notion
  • Application
    • One note
    • Obsidian
    • Typora
    • Emacs Org-Mode

My preferences

  • I wanted to have my notes on my machine. having all of my notes on remote server is a no go.
  • I wanted to be able to extend the solution
  • Nothing complicated, it should be simple with no extra features I don’t need
  • Plain text format, binary data or custom formats lock my files to a specific solution

Org-Mode

That eleminates everything but Emacs Org-Mode. And I tried it for a while. the main problem for me was that it’s limited by emacs UI. so I can’t include a video or audio and extending it require Knowing Elisp. I can do simple stuff in Elisp but the fact that Org-Mode is already complicated then extending it with a language I’m not very familiar with harder.

So that drops even Org-Mode.

Xlog

So I had to write my own solution. I choose #go for that. build a very simple core:

  • HTTP server
  • works on current directory
  • has an interface that renders markdown to HTML
  • has an interface to edit markdown files

Then I started to add every feature as one file to the project and structured it in a way that removing the file removes the feature.

Then I started to add some features like:

  • supporting hashtags
  • converting any text to a link if it’s a name of another note.
  • list of recently edited files
  • search
  • support for emojis
  • versioning

Generating static files

  • After couple months of development I made a video on youtube describing the program and that increased my interest in developing it again
  • So I added a way to use the program in readonly mode
  • and then used that develop a way to build the whole directory as HTML + extension pages.
  • That allowed me to migrate my personal website (the one you’re reading now) to more simple and flat structure. I was using github page default jekyll structure before.

Main website

📼 index | Xlog

Xlog is a static site generator for digital gardening written in Go. It serves markdown files as HTML and allows editing files online. It focuses on enriching markdown files and surfacing implicit l
https://xlog.emadelsaid.com

Github project

The program is open source on github:

GitHub - emad-elsaid/xlog: 📼 Personal knowledge management application. One binary HTTP server. works in any Markdown directory. autolinks pages, hashtags, auto preview images link, screenshare, screenshot, camera recording and audio recording embedded in the note. and fast search through the KB

📼 Personal knowledge management application. One binary HTTP server. works in any Markdown directory. autolinks pages, hashtags, auto preview images link, screenshare, screenshot, camera recording ...
https://github.com/emad-elsaid/xlog

Backlinks

See Also