Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my new website!

I mean site url, content and topics are still the same but but now I use Hugo instead of Wordpress.

Why change

Speed: my website got slower and slower. Static pages are fast, very fast.

Easy of use: I started to use markdown to write posts then copy&paste them in Wordpress via browser. This process was slow and required too many steps.

Saving: since Hugo doesn’t require a database I can save a few euros per year and cancel the database subscription from the provider.

Offline editing and preview: I can edit posts, theme and see how it behaves on my PC without installing a web server, Hugo includes it’s own web server.

What will be missed

Wordpress included a plugin to check grammar and spelling that fixed a lot of error end typos. Markdownpad has spell check, I forgot to enable it.

Jetpack by Wordpress has detailed statistics. Hugo uses Google Analytics . The feature I liked from Jetpack is to show when a new post is published to math views and updates.

Tech details

The migration requires two steps:

  1. export the mysql database where all the Wordpress posts are stores
  2. run a script that exports all the posts in markdown format

Then install Hugo , chose a theme (I use Blackburn ), write pages in markdown and export them where you like.

I save the files in a Dropbox account so I don’t need to worry about backup, versioning and keep files in sync between my work and personal computers.

To upload files to my ISP I use lftp , installed via Chocolatey on my Windows 10 PC.

This is the script I use now:

open -u MYUSER,MYPASS ftp.ifconfit.it
mirror -R -P 5 -p -n /cygdrive/c/data/HUGO/sites/ifconfig.it/public /www.ifconfig.it/hugo

I think there’s room for improvement on this last step.

Wrap up

I think Hugo and markdown will make my blogging easier and faster so I can focus on the actual content instead of spending time fixing Wordpress and writing in a bad online editor.

I’ll miss the grammar/spelling check so forgive typos and errors. I noticed Markdownpad2 has spell/grammar check, I just forgot to enable it.

Updates

Hugo themes may support differend shortcodes, sed can help to fix that.

Feedback

I’m always looking to improve and would love your feedback. If you spot any errors, have suggestions, or just want to share your thoughts, reach out to me directly on X.

Your input helps me make this blog better for everyone!

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