In yesterday’s post, I was pining for a simpler web and today, I’ve found it! I’ve spent the last hour or so messing around with HTML, a little CSS, a little git repo and some hosting, and ta-da, I’ve launched a new temporary homepage for my little non-profit (DNS things might still be updating; you can see the new thing over here)!
I’ve forgotten a little basic HTML and CSS, but MDN was there to back me up.
I wanted to make sure I could easily deploy it, and Github was there to help me make a repo and get it cloned to my laptop. I even used VS Code to make a couple of commits!
When I was ready to get it online, Render was there to make it really easy (and free) to get it out there and ready to launch.
I even used a color wheel to find a kind of complementary color for the links (I darked it so it passed the contrast checker – accessibility is important!).
Is my faith fully restored? Kind of? There’s still a barrier to entry to get hand-crafted HTML online, but it’s not a particularly high barrier. For hobbyists who have a few hours to learn how to set up a repo, are OK using VS Code’s git plugins to commit things, and Render to host it, you could get something up and running pretty quickly, and build on it over time.
And if you don’t want to know about any of that, there are lots and lots of ways to WYSIWYG your way online – so many that I won’t even go into them all.
I’m happy to see it’s possible to start a project on a Saturday morning while watching Brentford v. West Ham, and get something online before halftime. Backing up wordpress and moving the domain might take me to full-time…