I wasn't quite planning on making a new release of BlogMore so soon after the previous version, but I had a couple of ideas that I wanted to add, and then also got a nifty request too; so here we are: we have v2.23.0.

The first couple of changes relate to the cache. In the previous release I added a cache of the FontAwesome metadata, which in turn means that a cache directory is being created. I felt it would be fair and useful to provide a command that both lets the user know where the cache lives, and to also remove it. So now BlogMore has a cache command with two sub-commands:

  • location: tells you where the cache directory is located
  • clear: removes the cache directory

Also, now that we have a cache directory, it makes sense to use it a bit more to squeeze even more time out of the build process. So starting with this release, per content directory, the various icons that are created for the site are cached. This means that if the source image doesn't change, for each subsequent build there's no conversion and resize for every variation. This saves a good fraction of a second, making the build of my blog feel noticeably quicker.

Finally, earlier today, Andy asked if it would be possible to have the BlogMore serve mode auto-reload any page being viewed in a browser, when the site is regenerated. It was something I'd considered myself a couple of times so that was a good reason to finally look into it. Not knowing how this could be achieved1, I prompted Gemini for an idea, stressing I wanted a solution that didn't disturb a generated site; it came up with a convincing solution. I let it run at it and, along with a few changes of my own, it seems to be working a treat.

This, of course, now makes me want to squeeze even more time out of the build process.

  1. Web development has never been my primary area of knowledge. ↩