Sweetblog

Sweetblog is a Django application that simplifies blog creation and maintenance. It provides a clean, easy-to-use platform for running your own personal blog with minimal setup.

Features

Core Functionality

• Markdown Support: Write posts in Markdown with live preview in the admin interface
• Collections: Organize articles into collections (categories)
• Tags: Tag articles for better organization and discoverability
• Comments System: Built-in nested commenting system with reply functionality
• Engagement: Like/dislike system for articles
• View Tracking: Track article views and calculate reading time
• Multiple Themes: Support for Pico.css and Sakura.css frameworks

Quick Start

Installation

1. Add Sweetblog to your Django project:

# Using pip
pip install sweetblog

# Using uv
uv add sweetblog

2. Configure Django settings:

Add to INSTALLED_APPS:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
   'dal',
    'dal_select2',
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    
    # Sweetblog
    'sweetblog',
   
    'meta',
    'treenode',
    'magic_notifier',
]

3. Add Sweetblog settings:

# CSS Framework choice
CSS_FRAMEWORK = 'pico'  # Options: 'pico', 'sakura'

# Media files
MEDIA_URL = '/media/'
MEDIA_ROOT = BASE_DIR / 'media'

# Static files
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATIC_ROOT = BASE_DIR / 'static'

4. Include URLs:

In your main urls.py:

from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import path, include
from django.conf import settings
from django.conf.urls.static import static

urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
    path('', include('sweetblog.urls')),
]

if settings.DEBUG:
    urlpatterns += static(settings.MEDIA_URL, document_root=settings.MEDIA_ROOT)
    urlpatterns += static(settings.STATIC_URL, document_root=settings.STATIC_ROOT)

5. Run migrations:

python manage.py makemigrations
python manage.py migrate

6. Create superuser:

python manage.py createsuperuser

7. Collect static files:

python manage.py collectstatic

8. Run server:

python manage.py runserver

Usage

Creating Blog Posts

1. Login to Django Admin at /admin/

2. Create a Collection (optional):

   • Go to Collections -> Add Collection
   • Enter name and description

3. Create an Article:

   • Go to Articles -> Add Article
   • Write content in Markdown
   • Add tags and select collection
   • Upload thumbnail image
   • Save

Markdown Support

Sweetblog supports standard Markdown syntax:

# Heading 1
## Heading 2

**Bold** and *italic*

- Bullet lists
1. Numbered lists

[Links](https://example.com)
![Images](image.jpg)

`inline code`

Available Views

• HomeView: Lists recent articles with pagination
• CollectionDetailView: Shows articles in a specific collection
• ArticleDetailView: Displays single article with comments
• TagDetailView: Lists articles with a specific tag

Project Structure

sweetblog/
├── src/
│   └── sweetblog/
│       ├── models.py
│       ├── views.py
│       ├── urls.py
│       ├── admin.py
│       ├── serializers.py
│       ├── templates/
│       │   └── sweetblog/
│       │       ├── base_pico.html
│       │       ├── base_sakura.html
│       │       ├── home.html
│       │       └── article_detail.html
│       └── static/
│           └── sweetblog/
│               ├── css/
│               └── js/
│                   └── article.js
└── tests/
    └── testsweetblog/
        └── settings.py

Configuration

Basic Settings

# Django settings
SECRET_KEY = 'your-secret-key'
DEBUG = True
ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['localhost', '127.0.0.1']

# Database
DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
        'NAME': BASE_DIR / 'db.sqlite3',
    }
}

# Sweetblog theme
CSS_FRAMEWORK = 'pico'  # or 'sakura'

Development

Testing

python manage.py test sweetblog

Development Setup

# Clone repository
git clone <repository-url>
cd sweetblog

# Install with uv
uv pip install -e .

# Run development server
python manage.py runserver

Dependencies

• Django >= 4.0
• mistune (Markdown parser)
• Pillow (Image processing)

Models

• Category: Article categories
• Collection: Groups of related articles
• Article: Base article model
• MarkdownArticle: Article with Markdown content
• Device: User device tracking
• Comment: Article comments

Admin Features

• Live Markdown preview widget
• Automatic HTML generation from Markdown
• Support for multiple Markdown fields on same page

License

See LICENSE file for details.