Toolchain
| Framework | Jekyll |
|---|---|
| Languages | CSS HTML JavaScript (jQuery, node.js, vanilla) Liquid YAML |
| Editor | Atom |
| Notes & organization | OneNote |
| Version control | Git (CLI) |
| Deployment | GitHub Pages |
Jekyll
I built this book on Tom Johnson's Documentation Theme for Jekyll, v6.0. He designed most of the cool navigation & text features, like the accordian sidebar & mouse-over tooltips. I'm not sure I could have produced this book in this form if Tom hadn't made his theme freely available.
I made tweaks to his original layouts, stylesheets, header, footer, et cetera, but the theme is largely unchanged. I haven't taken the time to learn, for example, JavaScript; I most likely wouldn't have had the patience to learn & iterate the code that keeps the sidebar navigation open & highlights your current page.
Tom's theme was built on the open source Jekyll project, which integrates with GitHub Pages, where this booksite is hosted.
Though I cite Tom here, I am not implying that he sponsors, endorses, or is otherwise connected to me or The Great Permission.
Travis Vignon generously offered his skill as a developer to create the Previous & Next buttons.
EPIPO
This book was organized around the idea that Every Page is Page One—a navigation principle that emphasizes the de-centralized nature of web-based content. To my knowledge, EPIPO was first developed & articulated by Mark Baker.
EPIPO bases its design decisions on the following truths:
- Readers can land on your site from any other site on the web.
They'll have different expectations for your site based on the context from which they arrived. - Readers can land on any of your pages.
They won't necessarily land on your homepage, or move sequentially through the site like a book (even if you've designed it that way).
Every page must stand alone and allow the reader to orient themself in the larger landscape of the site. So while I have organized the poems & interludes in this booksite for you to read in a specific order, you can click around to create your own experience, using the navigation bars above & to the left of each page, or the Related poems links below each poem.
Fonts
Headers come from the Montserrat family.
Body copy is from the Kohinoor Bangla family.
Comments
Tom's theme integrates Commento comments, and I'd just need to create my own account to utilize that feature. I briefly considered keeping them in, because the idea of a "social book" sounded innnovative & intruiging, but then I remembered about the internet & comments & people and decided against it.
Pay What You Want (if you want)
This booksite is available entirely for free, and will continue to be free as long as the cost to host or own the domain doesn't become exorbitant. It's thrilling that you're here, and I've always intended for the booksite to be available at no cost.
That said, like most artists, I rarely get paid for what I create, despite spending much of my free time creating. For example:
- I completed the earliest iteration of this book in 2014 (for my MFA thesis).
- I've been drafting & revising some poems in this book for over a decade.
See the footer of each poem for exact dates. - While I had a framework to build this book upon, I still had to teach myself the underlying Liquid, HTML, CSS, Regex, & CLI skills, and apply them to the design & navigation principles I already knew to put this site together. Not to mention the troubleshooting. My god, the troubleshooting!
It took roughly 23 months to build this booksite.
And I loved doing all of it! But I've barely written any new poems since I started this booksite. And I don't know when I'll even consider writing another book. If you feel willing & able to pay for access to this collection, there are two links at the bottom of every page, and at the top of every page in the Give dropdown:
- To send a one-time contribution, use the Donate to me! link to go to my PayPal.Me page.
- To set a recurring payment, use the Support me! link to go to my Patreon page.
I'm also a verified Brave creator. While using Brave browser, you can tip me in Basic Attention Token by clicking the BAT icon in the address bar and selecting Send tip.