We are in 2015 but we still have problems with blogging, at least I have problems. What I am looking for:
- Simple WYSIWYG editor to write posts
- Simple GUI to manage current posts
- Different themes to select or at least easily customize a theme
- To get static html version of whole blog
- Html version should work seamless in a simple server (no PHP, or database support required)
- A bonus feature, automatically update web site when I change local version (auto export and deploy)
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any product/service satisfying these conditions. There are lots of Jekyll like products but obviously they are failing to match first two conditions. They are not user friendly, I don’t want to deal with technical things to write a simple blog post. At the other side of spectrum, there are lots of easy web site generator services. However mostly they are closed and I don’t want to depend on a closed service. After trying lots of service/product I settled on again WordPress with HTML Output plugin. It is an old plugin but it is working.
Result:
Install a local WordPress in your PC, install HTML Output plugin, customize your theme, write your posts, export, update to server. It is not that complicated. In future, I will try to automatize export and update process, but for now lets follow the “simple is better” principle.