What is a digital garden ?
Some links that describe the concept, in order of discovery and example following:
https://johackim.com/digital-garden 🇫🇷 / tool(s) : next.js, obsidian
Further reading and/or inspirations :
https://joelhooks.com/digital-garden
https://mathieudutour.github.io/gatsby-digital-garden/
https://www.tiagofsanchez.com/about
https://maggieappleton.com/garden/
https://wiki.brianturchyn.net/writing/digital-garden
https://matthieucneude.com/garden/
The example that made me decide this is the direction I wanted to take :
https://wiki.nikiv.dev/free 🇬🇪 / tool(s): docusaurus (I voluntarily put the free link... Feel free to pay the required fee to support the author and access the whole content)
Well... what a digital garden is not.
A (we)blog is a series of posts in a chronological order, sometime related to one topic, sometime more.
A wiki is an ordered-by-topics knowledge base.
A portfolio is a display of achievements, a list of projects, basically a large showcase.
My vision of my Digital Garden
This website will be a central point towards all my other side-projects and interests.
The challenge will be to manage to achieve and create everything I have in mind.
Basically, I wish to document here what I need, what solutions exist, how I select and apply them, and if/how I can improve them.
To summarize, there will be a portefolio part in order to list my main projects and their status, a blog for opinions and retrospectives, and this wiki for the knowledge base aspect.
Tooling
Specifications
lighweight
no-building-step
self-hostable
wysiwyg editor
Attempts
Attempt 0 : Hugo
Why this solution ?
Used by few people who inspire me
My friend Val
Drawbacks :
At the time of the test, I don't have my own code repository yet, I cannot edit the content from everywhere and build + push it.
Difficulties to adapt an existing theme to what I wished to create. (Building one from scratch is not yet realistic)
Attempt 1 : Datenstrom Yellow
Why this solution ?
It checks all the Specifications boxes
Drawbacks :
adding pictures to posts is not as easy as with Atlassian Confluence (copy and paste from clipboard)
I have no patience for design customization and I would like some blog/wiki basic features
Attempt 2 : Custom landing page + blog subdomain running ghost + wiki subdomain running wiki.js
Drawbacks :
Wiki.js does not allow simple image pasting, the whole action requires way to much clicks
Wiki.js design does not totally suit what I want out of the box
What about adjusting the design to the landing page + the blog + the wiki ?!
When opening the blog's link, Ghost always displays an unexpected "We'll be right back" message instead of already displaying the content. I don't know if this is webhosting provider related or ghost related, nevertheless, I do not want to take the time to investigate this.
What about the backup and restore ?
Heavy solutions with databases, a bit far for a KISS logic (even if my expectations are already far from being KISS)
Attempt 3 : Coming back to Datenstrom Yellow
Having a look at the 2024's April's fool joke of David Legrand, it reminded me that I wanted something simple to maintain.
I neither want to use wordpress Therefore, I came back to Datanstrom Yellow.
Let's learn it. Let's build what I have in mind.
Choice
But some things need to be adjusted. (More details on the page dedicated to Datenstrom Yellow)