Building a Modern Personal Website

When I decided to create my personal website, I wanted something that would be fast, easy to maintain, and completely under my control. After exploring various options, I settled on building a static site generator using Node.js and Handlebars, with Markdown for content management.

Key Features

Here's what makes this website special:

• Static Site Generation: Fast loading times and excellent SEO
• Markdown Content: Easy to write and maintain content
• Tag System: Organized content with a flexible tagging system
• Blog Support: Full-featured blog with thumbnails and excerpts
• Modern Design: Clean, responsive layout that works on all devices

Technical Stack

The website is built using:

• Node.js for the build system
• Handlebars for templating
• Markdown for content
• Front Matter for metadata
• Express for local development

How It Works

The build process is straightforward:

1. Markdown files are processed with front matter
2. Content is converted to HTML
3. Templates are applied using Handlebars
4. Static files are generated
5. Assets are copied to the public directory

Here's a simplified example of the build process:

const marked = require("marked");
const frontMatter = require("front-matter");

function processMarkdown(content) {
  const { attributes, body } = frontMatter(content);
  const html = marked.parse(body);
  return { ...attributes, content: html };
}

Features I'm Proud Of

Tag System

The tag system allows for easy content organization and discovery. Each post can have multiple tags, and each tag has its own page showing all related posts.

Blog Layout

The blog layout features thumbnails, excerpts, and tags, making it easy for readers to find and preview content they're interested in.

Development Server

The development server watches for changes and automatically rebuilds the site, making the development process smooth and efficient.

Future Improvements

I'm planning to add:

• RSS feed support
• Dark mode toggle
• Search functionality
• Reading time estimates
• Related posts suggestions

Conclusion

Building this website has been a great learning experience. It's exactly what I wanted: fast, maintainable, and completely under my control. The combination of Node.js, Handlebars, and Markdown provides a solid foundation for future improvements.

Feel free to check out the projects section to see what else I'm working on!