{ "version": "https://jsonfeed.org/version/1.1", "title": "fLaMEd fury", "description": "What's going on Internet?", "home_page_url": "https://flamedfury.com/", "feed_url": "https://flamedfury.com/feeds/posts/feed.json", "icon": "https://flamedfury.com/favicon.ico", "favicon": "https://flamedfury.com/favicon.ico", "author": { "name": "fLaMEd", "url": "https://flamedfury.com/" }, "items": [ { "id": "https://flamedfury.com/posts/re-we-need-a-physical-digital-music-experience/", "title": "RE: We Need A Physical-Digital Music Experience", "url": "https://flamedfury.com/posts/re-we-need-a-physical-digital-music-experience/", "content_html": "

What’s going on, Internet? Olly wants a physical-digital music experience: browse the racks at your local record store, chat to the staff, listen to stuff, but instead of bagging the vinyl, pay them for a FLAC download and have the store clip the ticket. I think I’m into it…

While I still buy records physically, I often don’t have the time to get into the local record store weekly to dig through the crates. I purchase my records through a few stores online, often lining up with sales as vinyl is expensive.

When I’m buying a digital album, it’s usually through the artist or band’s website directly, Bandcamp, or Qobuz as a last resort. That way the sale goes through to the artist or band as directly as possible. But it does nothing for a local record store.

Sadly, my favourite local record store recently closed down. See: RIP to my favourite record store, Flying Out.

The book world already has this figured out. Libro.fm lets me link a local book shop, The Village Bookshop in my case, and whenever I purchase an audiobook through Libro.fm they get a slice of the purchase. I get the audiobook I was buying anyway, and a local shop gets supported for existing.

I’m torn though. Buying digital through a record store means the artist gets less, and that’s the whole reason I buy direct. Books are different: very few authors can sell DRM-free copies from their own website unless they’re independent, so something like Libro.fm filling that gap makes sense.

It would be cool to have the physical space where you can still dig through the crates, or flip through the shelves, scan a QR code and go direct to the artist website or Bandcamp. Could the record shop take a cut through the referring QR code? However, that’s just another dollar taken from the band. Physical stores are just so damn expensive these days.

I guess it’s more a case of a service like Bandcamp setting something up like the Libro.fm model: I link my local record store, and every digital album I buy sends a slice their way. The artist still gets their cut, and the store stays in the picture.

Yeah, I don’t know?

Hey, thanks for reading this post in your feed reader! Want to chat? Reply by email or add me on XMPP, or send a webmention. Check out the posts archive on the website.

", "date_published": "2026-07-15T10:44:08Z", "summary": "Olly wants to buy digital music through his local record store. The book world already has this figured out." },{ "id": "https://flamedfury.com/posts/blaow-blaow-lets-get-rowdy/", "title": "BLAOW! BLAOW! LET'S GET ROWDY!", "url": "https://flamedfury.com/posts/blaow-blaow-lets-get-rowdy/", "content_html": "

BLAOW! BLAOW! What’s going on, Internet? This banger of a track, Rowdy (BLAOW!), was introduced to me as part of Les Mills SPRINT release 43. We’re only up to release 44 but have been enjoying this track every other SPRINT class.

I’ve been playing it a bit for the kids, and I love it in the mornings when we get ready for a ROWDY drop off.

Hey, thanks for reading this post in your feed reader! Want to chat? Reply by email or add me on XMPP, or send a webmention. Check out the posts archive on the website.

", "date_published": "2026-07-15T09:53:00Z", "summary": "When a BANGER gets stuck in your head!" },{ "id": "https://flamedfury.com/posts/dinosaur-discovery-returns/", "title": "Dinosaur Discovery Returns", "url": "https://flamedfury.com/posts/dinosaur-discovery-returns/", "content_html": "

What’s going on, Internet? Last year we discovered the dinosaurs at Auckland Zoo, and this year we went back for round two. They’ve added some new dinosaurs to the track this year, so it was well worth the revisit.

We made the trip with my brother and his kids again, and this year my parents were up for the week so it was a great family night out. The kids are all a year older, we stayed out later and they had a great time. My youngest who is two years old now was a bit scared, but was able to put on a brave face walking around with daddy.

I expect many more visits to the dinosaurs during the day as we visit the zoo during the upcoming weekends. I might never ever get to the NZ birds section (I have been trying with each zoo visit, lol).

Enjoy the photos.

\\"A
1 / 18
\\"A
2 / 18
\\"An
3 / 18
\\"A
4 / 18
\\"Two
5 / 18
\\"A
6 / 18
\\"A
7 / 18
\\"A
8 / 18
\\"A
9 / 18
\\"Two
10 / 18
\\"A
11 / 18
\\"A
12 / 18
\\"A
13 / 18
\\"An
14 / 18
\\"A
15 / 18
\\"A
16 / 18
\\"A
17 / 18
\\"Two
18 / 18

Hey, thanks for reading this post in your feed reader! Want to chat? Reply by email or add me on XMPP, or send a webmention. Check out the posts archive on the website.

", "date_published": "2026-07-15T08:00:00Z", "summary": "Back to Auckland Zoo for this year's Dinosaur Discovery Track, with a batch of new dinosaurs on the loose." },{ "id": "https://flamedfury.com/posts/there-and-back-again/", "title": "There And Back Again", "url": "https://flamedfury.com/posts/there-and-back-again/", "content_html": "

What’s going on, Internet? This was meant to be the April wrap-up. It’s now the middle of July, so let’s call it the autumn-into-winter wrap-up and pretend that was the plan all along, lol.

Autumn kicked off with Easter down in Martinborough and a batch of hot cross buns. I managed to get to three gigs in three months: MGK at Spark Arena, Split Enz at Spark Arena, and a solo night out for Home Brew performing Last Week at the Auckland Town Hall. I’m so happy I got to see Home Brew perform live, finally after all these years. Auckland has been really good for me being able to get out to gigs more frequently.

More recently, this month we escaped a rainy afternoon at Kelly Tarlton’s. The following weekend we headed south to Butterfly Creek and spent the afternoon there. My first time visiting and really enjoyed it. It’s part butterfly sanctuary, part farm, part zoo, part adventure playground, and part dinosaur kingdom, lol. There’s a lot going on. We spent around 30 minutes in the butterfly house while my son stood super still in an attempt to have a butterfly land on him. So cute, but didn’t work out for him this time.

Then finally the weekend just been we spent a long weekend on Waiheke for Matariki. We spent Friday on the beach, hot chocolate and fluffies at the beach cafe, late lunch at The HEKE, and a bus trip to Oneroa for ice cream. Saturday we spent the morning at the Ostend Markets, back to the beach, then back to the beach cafe for an early dinner and to watch the All Blacks Italy game.

When I last wrote about books, it was all about reading eBooks again. Since then I’ve got through nine books, with only A Darkness Returns being an eBook. Highlights of these books were The New Girl and Leave Before You Go by Emily Perkins, Platform Decay by Martha Wells and the return to James S. A. Corey’s new universe The Faith of Beasts.

I also read The Lean Startup, Blood Ties, Famesick, Don’t Burn Anyone at the Stake Today but mostly didn’t finish these.

The record shelf did some damage this quarter, 20 new arrivals. June was basically an Olivia Rodrigo situation, and each gig sent me home with its record: MGK’s Lost Americana, True Colours after Split Enz, and Last Week on pink vinyl after the Home Brew show.

\\"Chris
\\"RNZŌ
\\"Amamelia
\\"Eminem
\\"MGK
\\"Schoolboy
\\"The
\\"Coolio
\\"Split
\\"Kevin
\\"Home
\\"Clear
\\"Britney
\\"Coast
\\"Miley
\\"Olivia
\\"Olivia
\\"Olivia
\\"AFI
\\"+++!

I guess the other thing with three months to cover is that I got through a lot of media. Highlights being Outer Banks. I wrote up seasons one and two and have since torn through season three and halfway through season four as I write this. Such a fun show. I realised as I started season three that this reminds me of the recent Tomb Raider games or the older Uncharted games which I loved playing.

The other big binge was Hacks, all five seasons, 47 episodes. I had an absolute blast with this show. It was sitting there waiting to be watched for literal years and I finally sat down and blasted through it.

Another standout was Tulsa King, got through the last two seasons quickly. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this show so much!

The Boys wrapped up with season five. I think I was satisfied with how it ended? Yeah, I think so. I also got through Fallout season two quickly, can’t wait for the next. And also wrapping up was Euphoria which messily wrapped up with season three. This season was kinda bat shit, not sure whether I enjoyed it or not, but happy I don’t have to think about it any more.

Keeping up with the weeklies and new seasons: House of the Dragon season three, X-Men '97 season two, and Power Book III: Raising Kanan season five. This season we’re really seeing Kanan turning into how we saw him in Ghost.

I’m also slowly working through Only Murders in the Building season five with my wife and in-laws when we are able to sit down together and watch an episode.

Eighteen movies since March. The highlights though. I caught Project Hail Mary at the theatre with my brother-in-law before it stopped showing. Finally caught up with The Fantastic 4: First Steps to make sure I’m up to speed with the road to Avengers: Doomsday. I was excited to see The Devil Wears Prada 2 as the first always had a special nostalgic place in my heart.

Anniversary was an unexpected sleeper, I was not expecting what this movie ended up being after watching the trailer.

Don’t Ever Stop, a fantastic documentary on Tony De Vit. This was especially good as a hardhouse fan and hearing legends of the scene talk about their interactions with Tony and memories of the origins of what became the hardhouse scene in the UK.

The Drama was an interesting one, and to be honest I thought the other woman’s secret she shared was way worse than Zendaya’s. Locking a kid in a fridge in the forest and not telling anyone is wild. Get out of here.

And the rest… Office Romance, Mile End Kicks, A Real Pain, Eenie Meanie, Carolina Caroline, Stone Cold Fox. I don’t think I watched any I didn’t like.

The bookmarks kept flowing while the blog was quiet. The best of them are already rounded up in the May and June link dumps, so I won’t repeat them here. Check out the bookmarks page for even more.

Around the web? I can’t remember if I shared this already, but I participated with issue 24 of the Ctrl-ZINE. Go give that a read! I also finally sat down with Manu to answer his People And Blogs questions. Manu has also hung up his hat since founding and running the series for the last few years and Zachary Kai has picked up the reins. You can find the archive here.

James has recently started a new podcast, Wonders of Web Weaving which is 9 episodes deep as of writing. Catch up on all of them if you haven’t already, and if you keep listening you might hear yours truely in a week or two 😉

Website wise, there’s plenty going on under the hood while I prepare for the 2027 redesign. Really looking forward to sharing this with you all soon. There’ve been a few improvements around the site, but you’ll see most of the changes when I roll out the new design.

I did sit down and refresh my 11ty and Neocities guide. I’m really pleased with all the great feedback I’ve received from this one, especially with all the people who have successfully managed to build a website using 11ty with it.

Sweeet, laters 🤙

Hey, thanks for reading this post in your feed reader! Want to chat? Reply by email or add me on XMPP, or send a webmention. Check out the posts archive on the website.

", "date_published": "2026-07-13T08:00:00Z", "summary": "What I've been up to over autumn and into winter." },{ "id": "https://flamedfury.com/posts/manawatia-a-matariki/", "title": "Mānawatia a Matariki", "url": "https://flamedfury.com/posts/manawatia-a-matariki/", "content_html": "

What’s going on, Internet? Mānawatia a Matariki, Happy Māori New Year! Today is a time for remembrance, celebrating the present, and looking to the future.

In Māori culture, Matariki is the Pleiades star cluster and a celebration of its first rising in late June or early July. The rising marks the beginning of the new year in the Māori lunar calendar. See Matariki.

I’ve spent the day on Waiheke, down on Onetangi with my amazing wife and family. We spent the morning on the beach. The early afternoon at The HEKE for a long lunch and then cuddled up with the kids watching Bluey this evening. I hope you’ve had a relaxing day too.

If you want to get into some great homegrown kiwi music, RNZ put on ‘Waiata 100: New Zealand’s most beloved homegrown songs’ today, counting down the most loved kiwi songs as voted by 65,000 kiwis. Lots of great music in there, my only complaint is that a lot of bangers from the last decade have been overlooked I guess based on the voter generation. I’ll follow up a post of great music from the last five years another day.

Anyway, happy Matariki.

Hey, thanks for reading this post in your feed reader! Want to chat? Reply by email or add me on XMPP, or send a webmention. Check out the posts archive on the website.

", "date_published": "2026-07-10T08:48:51Z", "summary": "Happy Māori New Year!" },{ "id": "https://flamedfury.com/posts/link-dump-june-2026/", "title": "Link Dump: June 2026", "url": "https://flamedfury.com/posts/link-dump-june-2026/", "content_html": "

What’s going on, Internet? A few good links about blogging from this month. Enjoy.

For more, check out the bookmarks archive, and subscribe to the feeds if you want these as they happen.

Hey, thanks for reading this post in your feed reader! Want to chat? Reply by email or add me on XMPP, or send a webmention. Check out the posts archive on the website.

", "date_published": "2026-07-02T07:32:56Z", "summary": "Dumping some open tabs from the month. There might be something in here you might find interesting." },{ "id": "https://flamedfury.com/posts/outer-banks-2020-seasons-one-and-two/", "title": "Outer Banks (2020) Seasons One & Two", "url": "https://flamedfury.com/posts/outer-banks-2020-seasons-one-and-two/", "content_html": "

What’s going on, Internet? I just finished up the first season of Outer Banks (2020) and damn did I enjoy it.

A teen drama, but not your typical teen drama. A group of friends (Pogues - you’re either a Pogue or a Kook in this show) from the wrong side of town are on the trail of a long-buried mystery. We see as they uncover the mystery how this spirals from one disaster to another. Watching through the pilot episode, we’re introduced to the main characters, John B, JJ, Pope, and Kiara. We learn about the rivalry between the Pogues from the cut and the Kooks from the rich side of town.

Minor spoilers ahead. The show’s been out for years so, whatever.

It doesn’t take long for the relationship drama to kick in. John B falls for Sarah Cameron, a Kook from the rich side of the island, which crosses just about every line the Pogues stand for and pulls her right into the middle of the hunt. There’s friction inside the group too, the kind you get from four mates who’d do anything for each other but don’t always agree on how. None of it feels like filler. It all winds up feeding the stakes and pushing the story forward.

The show was created by Jonas Pate, the same creator behind The Runarounds, which I watched and loved last year. Same coastal vibe, same knack for a tight young cast. The Runarounds even started life as a real band that popped up in Outer Banks, so watching The Runarounds led me to this.

When I started writing this post I had already started the second season, and now a week later after finally finishing the post I’ve finished the second season. I’ve paused starting the third so I can write this post, lol, and also watch a few other shows in between.

What I loved about the second season is the original mystery that was deeply intertwined with John B kind of wraps up. Disappointingly so, I guess it’s going to come back in the later seasons. So to keep the show going the mystery intensifies, but this time centered around Pope. New bad guys introduced, more unrealistic situations for sixteen-year-olds happen and more plot twists appear.

I’ve said this about a few books I’ve read in the past, but sometimes these stories would land better if the characters were ten years older. I just can’t realistically see sixteen/seventeen-year-olds being able to do this.

So, I was on the edge of my seat for a few days while I slammed through the episodes. The last two or three were intense. I enjoyed the twists, and especially loved the cliffhanger.

It won’t be long before I dive into the third.

Hey, thanks for reading this post in your feed reader! Want to chat? Reply by email or add me on XMPP, or send a webmention. Check out the posts archive on the website.

", "date_published": "2026-06-24T08:21:10Z", "summary": "A teen drama, but not your typical teen drama. I love teen dramas." },{ "id": "https://flamedfury.com/posts/i-am-a-link-curator/", "title": "I Am A Link Curator", "url": "https://flamedfury.com/posts/i-am-a-link-curator/", "content_html": "

What’s going on, Internet? Friend of the site James recently shared a new post Blogger Archetypes which asks a series of questions to help you narrow down your character as a member of the blogging community. A bit of indie web fun.

Here are my results:

You are a Link curator

The web is not just its pages, but the connections between pages. You have internalised this and love spending your time exploring the web and sharing what you find with the world.

You are also a Culture maker

You love to help push the blogging community forward by starting discussions, encouraging thought, and sharing what’s on your mind.

And the other archetypes on offer:

Explorer: To you, the web feels like a library that’s open all hours and has everything you could ever imagine! You love reading others blogs, and know how important readers are to the whole of the indie web community!

Community gardener: You love to help contribute to building the blogging community, either through your writing or how you share the spirit of writing on the web with friends.

Author: You love writing and have a growing backlog of posts on your website! Words are your best friend and you’re always thinking about what to write next.

Link curator feels about right. A lot of what I do here is exactly that. Surfing the web, finding the good stuff, and passing it along. The bookmarks, the links back to other people’s writing (which I need to get back into doing regularly). That’s the fun part for me.

If you’ve got a blog, go and take the quiz and write up what you got. Send it my way, I’d love to to see what you got. 🤙

Hey, thanks for reading this post in your feed reader! Want to chat? Reply by email or add me on XMPP, or send a webmention. Check out the posts archive on the website.

", "date_published": "2026-06-22T08:49:05Z", "summary": "I took James' Blogger Archetypes quiz and got \\"link curator\\". Take it yourself and let me know your result." },{ "id": "https://flamedfury.com/guides/11ty-homepage-neocities-2026/", "title": "Create A Static Site Using 11ty & Deploy to Neocities (2026 Refresh)", "url": "https://flamedfury.com/guides/11ty-homepage-neocities-2026/", "content_html": "

What’s going on, Internet? Way back in 2022 I wrote a guide on building a static site with 11ty and deploying it to Neocities. It’s been one of my most-read posts, but it’s also aged: Eleventy has moved to v3 with a brand new module system, the dev server changed, and my whole workflow has shifted away from GitHub toward Forgejo and Codeberg. So here’s the refresh.

I haven’t hosted my own site on Neocities for years now, but it’s still home to a huge community of personal sites and homepages, especially folks in the 32-Bit Cafe, so this guide is still very much for them.

This guide aims to help you create a homepage using the static site generator (SSG) 11ty, keep the code in version control, and deploy it to Neocities, first by hand, then automatically.

The homepage that we are creating will take advantage of the Nunjucks templating language, allowing us to create a shared header, navigation and footer across all the pages on our homepage.

We will be creating an about, links, and contact pages before diving in and creating the ability to add a blog and a list of all blog posts on the blog page!

We will structure and style the page with a standard HTML5 boilerplate and some basic CSS that should allow you to add in your unique flavour that we all know you love to do.

Create a new project

First off, from a terminal, confirm that you have Node and NPM installed:

node -v && npm -v
v22.11.0
10.9.0

Create a new directory and cd into it:

mkdir 11ty-neocities && cd 11ty-neocities

Initiate a new project:

npm init -y

Install 11ty:

npm install @11ty/eleventy

Once the 11ty installation is complete, open the project in your favourite code editor:

codium .

You should now be in VSCodium with the following project structure:

11ty-neocities/
├── node_modules/
├── package.json
└── package-lock.json

Open package.json and update the scripts section to the following:

  \\"scripts\\": {
    \\"start\\": \\"npx @11ty/eleventy --serve\\",
    \\"build\\": \\"npx @11ty/eleventy\\"
  },

We also need to tell Node that this is an ESM project. Add "type": "module" to package.json. The file should look like this:

{
  \\"name\\": \\"11ty-neocities\\",
  \\"version\\": \\"1.0.0\\",
  \\"description\\": \\"\\",
  \\"type\\": \\"module\\",
  \\"main\\": \\"index.js\\",
  \\"scripts\\": {
    \\"start\\": \\"npx @11ty/eleventy --serve\\",
    \\"build\\": \\"npx @11ty/eleventy\\"
  },
  \\"keywords\\": [],
  \\"author\\": \\"\\",
  \\"license\\": \\"ISC\\",
  \\"dependencies\\": {
    \\"@11ty/eleventy\\": \\"^3.1.6\\"
  }
}

Create an 11ty config file

From the terminal (or VSCodium), create a new file eleventy.config.js at the project root:

touch eleventy.config.js

Open the file in VSCodium and add the following and save:

export default function (eleventyConfig) {
  return {
    dir: {
      input: \\"src\\",
      output: \\"public\\",
      includes: \\"_includes\\",
    },
  };
}

.gitignore

As we’re going to be keeping our homepage code in version control, create a .gitignore file in the project root:

touch .gitignore

Open the file in VSCodium and add the following and save:

# dependencies installed by npm

node_modules

# build artefacts

public

Start building the homepage

Now comes the fun part, building our homepage. 11ty supports a number of templating languages, but the two you’ll reach for most are Markdown and plain HTML. Markdown is the popular choice for content like blog posts: you just write, without <html> tags getting in the way. HTML is handy when you need precise structure. The best part is you can drop HTML straight into a Markdown file and 11ty renders it correctly, so it’s never one or the other.

For the pages that make up the site’s structure (home, about, links, contact) we’ll use HTML, because it maps neatly onto the layouts and partials we’re about to build. When we get to the blog, we’ll write the posts in Markdown, where it shines. Use whichever fits the job.

Create a src directory at the project root and cd into it:

mkdir src && cd src

Create an index.html file in the terminal or VSCodium:

touch index.html

Open the file and add some content:

<html>
  <head>
    <title>My New 11ty Homepage on Neocities!</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>Hello World</h1>

    <p>
      Check out your cool new static site built with
      <a href=\\"https://11ty.dev\\">11ty</a> on
      <a href=\\"https://neocities.org/\\">Neocities</a>.
    </p>
  </body>
</html>

Now from the terminal start 11ty:

npm start

If everything has been configured right so far you should see the following:

> 11ty-neocities@1.0.0 start
> npx @11ty/eleventy --serve

[11ty] Writing public/index.html from ./src/index.html (liquid)
[11ty] Wrote 1 file in 0.03 seconds (v3.1.6)
[11ty] Watching…
[11ty] Server at http://localhost:8080/

Now you can open up http://localhost:8080 and check out your new 11ty homepage! It should look like this:

\\"A
A Basic Hello World HTML Page

Amazing! But what we want to avoid is having to write out the <html> and <head> and <body> tags on each and every page, and be able to include a site header, navigation and footer so we don’t have to copy and paste the changes across every page each time we update.

Let’s checkout templating a layout!

Create a base layout

Create a new directory _includes/ in the src/ directory and cd into it:

mkdir _includes && cd _includes

Create a file base.njk in the terminal or VSCodium:

touch base.njk

Open the file and add the following:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang=\\"en\\">
  <head>
    <meta charset=\\"UTF-8\\" />
    <meta name=\\"viewport\\" content=\\"width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0\\" />
    <title>{{ title }}</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <header>
      <h1>{{ title }}</h1>
    </header>
    <main>{{ content | safe }}</main>
  </body>
</html>

Now, head back to the index.html file you created earlier, delete the contents and add some front matter and some content:

---
title: Hello World!
layout: base.njk
---

<p>
  Check out your cool new static site built with
  <a href=\\"https://11ty.dev\\">11ty</a> on
  <a href=\\"https://neocities.org/\\">Neocities</a>.
</p>

<p>This homepage template is perfect for:</p>

<ul>
  <li>Creating your own space on the web</li>
  <li>Expressing yourself</li>
  <li>Displaying all the gifs you've collected</li>
</ul>

<h2>Why do you want a homepage?</h2>
<p>The web was made for personal homepages, make this one yours</p>

If you’ve kept 11ty running and the browser running it should look like this:

\\"The
A Basic Hello World HTML Page Using a Template

Amazing! Now lets create the additional pages for our homepage.

Create the following pages in the src/ directory with the terminal or VSCodium:

touch about.html && touch links.html && touch contact.html

Open each of them up and add in some front matter and content:

about.html:

---
title: About Me
layout: base.njk
---

<p>Heya 👋 this is my homepage.</p>

links.html:

---
title: Links
layout: base.njk
---

<p>These are some of my favourite websites 🔗</p>
<ul>
  <li><a href=\\"https://flamedfury.com\\">fLaMEdFury.com</a></li>
  <li><a href=\\"https://11ty.dev\\">11ty</a></li>
  <li><a href=\\"https://neocities.org\\">Neocities</a></li>
  <li><a href=\\"https://32bit.cafe/\\">The 32-Bit Cafe</a></li>
</ul>

contact.html:

---
title: Contact Me
layout: base.njk
---

<p>Heya 👋 this is my contact page</p>

You should now be able to browse each of these pages if you kept 11ty running on the following urls:

http://localhost:8080/about/
http://localhost:8080/links/
http://localhost:8080/contact/

Great stuff, but that’s no use without a navigation! Let’s take a look at partials and create a shared header, navigation, and footer to bring our homepage together.

Creating our partials

In the terminal cd into _includes/ and create three partial files:

cd _includes && touch header.njk && touch navigation.njk && touch footer.njk

Open each of them up and add some content:

header.njk:

<h1>Welcome to my Homepage</h1>

navigation.njk

<a href=\\"/\\">Home</a>
<a href=\\"/about/\\">About</a>
<a href=\\"/links/\\">Links</a>
<a href=\\"/blog/\\">Blog</a>
<a href=\\"/contact/\\">Contact</a>

footer.njk:

<p>This is my footer | © 2026 Me.</p>

Once our partials are created, open base.njk again and update it to include our new elements and partials:

base.njk:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang=\\"en\\">

<head>
  <meta charset=\\"UTF-8\\" />
  <meta name=\\"viewport\\" content=\\"width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0\\" />

  <title>{{ title }}</title>
</head>

<body>
  <header>{% include 'header.njk' %}</header>

  <nav>{% include 'navigation.njk' %}</nav>

  <main>
    <h1>{{ title }}</h1>
    {{ content | safe }}
  </main>

  <footer>{% include 'footer.njk' %}</footer>
</body>

</html>

If you’ve kept 11ty running and the browser running it should look like this:

\\"The
A Basic Hello World HTML Page Using a Template and Partials

Amazing! Now lets add the blog.

Creating the blog

Blog posts are mostly prose, so this is where Markdown earns its keep. We’ll write the posts as .md files and let 11ty turn them into pages.

Create a new directory blog in the src directory and cd into it:

mkdir blog && cd blog

Create the following files in the src/blog directory with the terminal or VSCodium:

touch my-first-post.md && touch my-second-post.md && touch my-third-post.md && touch blog.json

Awesome, Open each of them up in VSCodium and add the following:

my-first-post.md:

---
title: My First Blog Post
---

This is my first blog post

my-second-post.md:

---
title: My Second Blog Post
---

This is my second blog post

my-third-post.md

---
title: My Third Blog Post
---

This is my third and final blog post

blog.json

{
  \\"layout\\": \\"blog\\"
}

We better create a blog layout so it renders!

Head back to the _includes directory to create a new layout file:

cd ../_includes && touch blog.njk

Open blog.njk up in VSCodium and add the following:

blog.njk:

---
layout: base.njk
---

<article>{{ content | safe }}</article>

Check that your blog posts are loading:

Amazing right? But to make it a blog, we need a blog page that lists all of our blog posts. We can do this with a tags collection:

Open blog.json again and add a key called tags with a value of blog:

blog.json:

{
  \\"layout\\": \\"blog\\",
  \\"tags\\": \\"blog\\"
}

Now 11ty has created a collection called blog and all we have to do is list it.

Head back to the src/ directory and create a blog.html file:

cd .. && touch blog.html

Open it and add the following:

blog.html:

---
title: This Is My Blog
layout: base.njk
---

These are all of my amazing blog posts, enjoy!
<ul>
  {% for post in collections.blog | reverse %}
  <li>
    <a href=\\"{{ post.url }}\\">{{ post.data.title }}</a>
  </li>
  {% endfor %}
</ul>

If you’ve kept 11ty running and the browser running it should look like this:

\\"The
A Basic Blog List Page

Amazing huh?

Add some styles

Great, so far we have a fully functional home page, but it doesn’t look quite right. We need a style sheet. You can use the one below as an example, it’s basic styling with some modern techniques, or just throw in your own!

Create a new css directory in src, cd into it and create styles.css:

mkdir css && cd css && touch styles.css

Open styles.css in VSCodium and add the following:

styles.css:

:root {
  /* Let the browser handle light and dark automatically */
  color-scheme: light dark;

  /* Two system-font stacks: sans for body, serif for headings */
  --font-body: system-ui, sans-serif;
  --font-head: ui-serif, Georgia, \\"Iowan Old Style\\", serif;

  /* Purple/pink palette. light-dark() picks the light value first, dark second */
  --bg: light-dark(#fdf4fa, #1a141f);
  --text: light-dark(#2a1f2d, #ece0ef);
  --muted: light-dark(#6f5d77, #a892b0);
  --accent: light-dark(#a21caf, #ff7ab6);
  --border: light-dark(#ecd9ec, #3a2f40);
}

*,
*::before,
*::after {
  box-sizing: border-box;
}

body {
  font-family: var(--font-body);
  color: var(--text);
  background: var(--bg);
  font-size: 1.15rem;
  line-height: 1.6;
  max-width: 40rem;
  margin-inline: auto;
  padding: 0 1rem;
}

/* Site header */
header {
  text-align: center;
  padding-block: 2rem;
}

/* Navigation */
nav {
  display: flex;
  flex-wrap: wrap;
  justify-content: center;
  gap: 1.5rem;
  padding-bottom: 1.5rem;
  border-bottom: 1px solid var(--border);
}

/* Main content */
main {
  padding-block: 2rem;
}

/* Site footer */
footer {
  margin-top: 4rem;
  padding-block: 2rem;
  text-align: center;
  color: var(--muted);
  font-size: 0.9rem;
  border-top: 1px solid var(--border);
}

/* Links */
a {
  color: var(--accent);
  text-underline-offset: 0.18em;
}

a:hover {
  text-decoration: none;
}

/* Headings */
h1,
h2 {
  font-family: var(--font-head);
  line-height: 1.1;
}

h1 {
  font-size: 2.5rem;
}

h2 {
  font-size: 1.8rem;
  margin-top: 2.5rem;
}

Now we need to include the style sheet in our base.njk layout file. Open it up and add <link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/styles.css" /> to the <head>:

_includes/base.njk:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang=\\"en\\">

<head>
  <meta charset=\\"UTF-8\\" />
  <meta name=\\"viewport\\" content=\\"width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0\\" />
  <link rel=\\"stylesheet\\" href=\\"/css/styles.css\\" />
  <title>{{ title }}</title>
</head>

<body>
  <header>{% include 'header.njk' %}</header>

  <nav>{% include 'navigation.njk' %}</nav>

  <main>
    <h1>{{ title }}</h1>
    {{ content | safe }}
  </main>

  <footer>{% include 'footer.njk' %}</footer>
</body>

</html>

You would have noticed that the stylesheet hasn’t been applied, we have to do one more thing in eleventy.config.js, something called file passthrough copy.

Open eleventy.config.js in VSCodium and add the following:

export default function (eleventyConfig) {
  eleventyConfig.addPassthroughCopy(\\"./src/css\\");

  return {
    dir: {
      input: \\"src\\",
      output: \\"public\\",
      includes: \\"_includes\\",
    },
  };
}

Because this will come up we may as well create the directories and add in the configuration for our images, fonts and JavaScript files.

Create the following directories in src:

mkdir img && mkdir fonts && mkdir js

Update eleventy.config.js again:

export default function (eleventyConfig) {
  eleventyConfig.addPassthroughCopy(\\"./src/css\\");
  eleventyConfig.addPassthroughCopy(\\"./src/img\\");
  eleventyConfig.addPassthroughCopy(\\"./src/fonts\\");
  eleventyConfig.addPassthroughCopy(\\"./src/js\\");

  return {
    dir: {
      input: \\"src\\",
      output: \\"public\\",
      includes: \\"_includes\\",
    },
  };
}

Just make sure you put all your static files in the appropriate directory and you’ll be good.

So finally, if you’ve kept 11ty running and the browser running it should look like this:

\\"The
A Nicely Styled Homepage

Yours will look a little different depending on the colours and fonts you chose above. Now we have a homepage we’re happy with, let’s get it online.

Deploy to Neocities

There are two ways to get your site onto Neocities. We’ll start with the simplest, pushing it from your terminal by hand, then automate it so a deploy happens every time you commit.

Build the site

Whichever method you choose, first build a fresh copy of your site:

npm run build

This writes the finished HTML, CSS and assets to the public directory. That’s the folder we deploy.

The simple way: the Neocities CLI

Neocities provides a command-line tool that lets you push your site straight from your terminal. It’s a Ruby gem, so you’ll need Ruby installed.

gem install neocities

The first time you run a command it’ll ask for your Neocities username and password, then store an API key locally so you don’t have to log in again.

Push the contents of your public directory:

neocities push public

That’s it, your homepage is live. For a lot of people this is all you need. Build, push, done.

The automated way: Forgejo Actions

Pushing by hand is fine, but it’s even nicer to have your site rebuild and deploy itself every time you commit a change. We can do that with Forgejo Actions, the built-in CI for Forgejo. If you self-host Forgejo this runs on your own runner; if you don’t self-host, Codeberg offers the same thing (more on that below).

First, push your project to a repository on your Forgejo instance. Then grab your Neocities API key from your account settings (Manage Site Settings → API Key) and add it to your repository as a secret named NEOCITIES_API_KEY (Repository → Settings → Actions → Secrets).

Now create a workflow file at .forgejo/workflows/deploy.yml:

name: Deploy to Neocities

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main

# only run one deploy at a time
concurrency:
  group: deploy-neocities
  cancel-in-progress: true

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: docker
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: https://code.forgejo.org/actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Set up Node
        uses: https://code.forgejo.org/actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 22

      - name: Install and build
        run: |
          npm ci
          npm run build

      - name: Deploy to Neocities
        uses: https://github.com/bcomnes/deploy-to-neocities@v3
        with:
          api_token: ${{ secrets.NEOCITIES_API_KEY }}
          dist_dir: public
          cleanup: true

Commit and push the workflow file. From now on, every push to main rebuilds your site and deploys it to Neocities automatically.

Not self-hosting? Use Codeberg

If you don’t run your own Forgejo instance, Codeberg is a free, community-run home for your code and runs the very same Forgejo Actions. The workflow file above works as-is. Push your project to a Codeberg repo, add the NEOCITIES_API_KEY secret in the repository settings, and you’re away. You may need to enable Actions for your repository first; see the Codeberg CI documentation for details.

Bringing your existing site across

Already have a homepage you’ve been hand-coding on Neocities? You don’t have to start from scratch. Eleventy is happy to take what you’ve got and slot it into this structure.

Copy each existing page into src/ (your old index.html becomes src/index.html, and so on). Then move the parts every page repeats, the <head>, header, nav and footer, into base.njk and the partials you built earlier. Delete that boilerplate from each page and add a little front matter at the top:

---
title: About Me
layout: base.njk
---

Whatever’s left in the file is just that page’s own content, and the layout wraps it.

Your CSS goes in src/css/, images in src/img/, and fonts in src/fonts/. The passthrough copy we set up earlier ships them straight to public/.

If a page is mostly writing, paste the body into a .md file instead of .html. Any fiddly HTML, like an embed or some custom markup, can stay exactly as it is and 11ty will render the Markdown around it.

Run npm run build, check public/ looks the way you expect, then push it live with the Neocities CLI or your Forgejo Actions workflow. Same site you already had, now with layouts, partials and a build step doing the repetitive work for you.

Reference: I created the original version of this guide based heavily on these existing guides, and they’re still well worth a read:

Without these, I wouldn’t even know how to write down what I needed to.

Hey, thanks for reading this post in your feed reader! Want to chat? Reply by email or add me on XMPP, or send a webmention. Check out the posts archive on the website.

", "date_published": "2026-06-16T12:00:00Z", "summary": "A refresh of my most-read guide. Build a homepage with 11ty, ship it to Neocities, and keep GitHub out of it with Forgejo or Codeberg." },{ "id": "https://flamedfury.com/posts/kelly-tarltons/", "title": "Kelly Tarlton's", "url": "https://flamedfury.com/posts/kelly-tarltons/", "content_html": "

What’s going on, Internet? This weekend was rainy and wet in Auckland so we packed up the kids in the car and headed to Kelly Tarlton’s, Auckland’s local aquarium. I hadn’t been myself since I was a kid, so I was excited to go with the kids. They’ve both been multiple times in their short little lives, and luckily they love revisiting places as often as they can.

Buying tickets online is the way to go. Once we arrived we went straight through after scanning our tickets. The first thing you walk through is old recreations of Scott Hutt and Scott Base from Antarctica, which I would have loved to stick around and read all the info cards for, but the kids “don’t like this part”. Fair enough. The penguins weren’t too far away.

But before you get to see the penguins you have to walk through this ice cave with a violently moving bridge, simulating something to do in Antarctica I guess. My daughter DOES NOT like this part, lol.

Braving the bridge, we got to see the penguins, which the kids love. Kelly Tarlton’s have King Penguins and Gentoo Penguins, and there are so many of them. Auckland Zoo only has half a dozen Little Blue Penguins, so this was fun, looking through the glass at them waddling around on the ice or swimming in their pool.

Past the penguins was an interactive room set up with tablet stations and a huge projector wall. On the tablets you get to colour in sea creatures. Your choices are turtle, fish, and manta ray. Once you’re done you tap “bring to life”, and about ten seconds later your creation appears on the projector screen and swims around with all the other colourful creatures. The kids absolutely loved this, and we spent a good forty minutes here.

Through a tunnel and we’re at the café and indoor playground. I was happy to sit down with a hot chocolate and watch the kids enjoy their snacks before spending thirty minutes on the playground.

Once they’d had enough, it was time to go through the aquarium. You stand on a travellator (you know, a flat escalator) and all the fish, rays, and sharks swim around and above you. We did this twice before carrying on to the rest of the exhibits in the little tanks. Crayfish, kina, eel, seahorses, tropical fish, starfish. We had fun checking them all out before heading to the dreaded gift shop before the exit. Meltdowns ensued, and after a bit of calming down we were able to escape.

The rain had stopped, and we had a nice drive home and pizza for dinner. Yum.

Hey, thanks for reading this post in your feed reader! Want to chat? Reply by email or add me on XMPP, or send a webmention. Check out the posts archive on the website.

", "date_published": "2026-06-06T09:38:17Z", "summary": "A rainy afternoon at the aquarium with the kids" } ] }