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Alula is a simple static blog framework, it is designed to fulfill requirements related to simplicity, efficiency and flexibility.
The basic principle is to go back into producing content, alula will take care of the tasks around the content, which typically take the focus away from publishing. Alula takes care of optimizing the HTML, CSS and JavaScript so there is no need for complex plugins or manual optimization. Alula also includes routines to handle and optimize attachments (e.g., images, videos) and does this to give you more time and focus for your content.
Everything has started from the basic idea of creating a blog framework, which would by default support origin-pull CDN without any kind of extra services (such as dynamic delivery services). This will require that all static files are delivered in such way that those can be cached for long periods or even forever. Alula fulfills this required by making sure all non-HTML deliverable files are actually always named in such way that it is easy to differentiate different versions and therefore the files can be delivered with the eternal expiration. HTML files are delivered without this kind of model to still achieve the best usability but the files can be delivered with longer expiration (such as hours).
Second very important design goal has been that there must be easy way to attach new images and videos into the blog and those would need to be delivered in optimized way. This brings image optimization and video encoding into the mandatory requirements. Alula is able to automatically create proper size thumbnails as well as bigger size optimized images from all inserted content without changing the originals. For videos, Alula supports utilizing Zencoder as the encoding service and automatically creates both HD and SD versions from all videos where required as well as creating different versions for different platforms (for example iOS and Android).
Third goal was that it is mandatory to serve the pages in mobile optimized way. At the same time without creating unnecessary and complicated wrappers to differentiate between desktop and mobile views. This is achieved in Alula by utilizing HTML5 technologies.
Fourth design goal was to wrap everything together to create beautiful blog, which would create a nice user experience. This is achieved in Alula by utilizing fancybox and SubLimeVideo to enable beautiful image and video viewing experience without any extra effort from blog maintainer.
- Install the gem
- Read about configuration
- Start blogging
We believe that we have achieved to create something, which fulfills the original design goals. The work is not yet finished and the world is never ready. Alula will keep developing further and your feedback is crucial for this. Fork, develop and send us feedback.