Published 2025-08-18
tag(s): #blogging #meta
I really don't have any excuse to have taken this long to do this, but: the site finally has
tag navigation.
The glorious feature is linked in the home page, but since I feel like
gloating: posts by tag.
So far, when writing a new post, I would get prompted for a title, and then the tags. This
also updated the list of recent posts, and the list of all posts.
Once done writing the post (after spellcheck. Allegedly) I would call another command that
added the current buffer to the RSS feed file.
Sometimes I start a post, and then I figure I am writing terribly[1], or that the topic is of no interest[2], or that the post is too rambly[3]. And then I close the buffer, but also have to reset the repository, so those changes in the different lists aren't in place next time I want to write.
The other problem with picking the tags first, is that sometimes I would go back and delete or
add one. Like, when I start writing with one objective in mind, and by the time I was done,
the post landed in a completely different place.
Changing the tags after the fact meant that I would constantly break the list of post by tags,
which could be OK if I had an easy way to regenerate it, but that sounded difficult...so
better to postpone the whole thing :)
But it still bothered me, because lately I've been thinking of sharing some posts here and there - say, something about football. And then that person would like to read other things I wrote about football, I assume. Or programming. Or Emacs. Etc etc.
I realized a few days ago, that if the problem is that I want to change the tags later...why
not pick the tags when I am done writing. Then I avoid the problem in the first
place.
Not only that, but since my workflow already involved calling a command when I was done
writing, not much changes for me...
So, I....errrr..."""""designed""""" a page for posts by tag, and wrote some code to pull all
the tags and populate the page in one go.
At some point I thought of having a page per tag, but I didn't quite like how it looked, even
if it might have been easier to update each page. I also didn't add any way for my code to add
a new tag: I have to manually put it in place in the per-tag page, with the correct mark up so
all the scripting does the right thing. And I am perfectly fine with this, I think it is a
good trade off.
I also thought I would revisit all posts to simplify and/or unify tags, or create a new one. But of course I gave up on the idea after opening the second file. I only re-classified a few recent posts.
I had so many other things to do 🤣 but you know, once I figured how to approach this, I had to go ahead an implement it ASAP. And that turned out to be now.