I came back after a while to make a few more improvements to the blog engine.

One was a fix for something I saw that I don't know why I did not resolve earlier, but it needed this change:

Just looks like the symlink I was making for the dev setup was not connecting right. I'm noting this because it feels weird. It's been 3 months, and I guess I really might not have tested files from the new dev build back when I set that up.

I don't even think I talked about the dev/stage split situation. Basically I decided to implement the drafts system where i have items marked as drafts to never render to the stage dir that I sync to publish publicly, I would prepare a second output dir just like stage/, and it would be called dev/. This would contain in addition any draft items. I could then very easily and reliably look at how my blog renders if i were to publish my draft content, and never be worrying if the logic has gone amiss and I publish something I've still marked draft due to some edge condition. I'd be able to see the difference in the local filesystem. I felt that any other approach would leave me second-guessing too much.

It isn't perfect though because it instantly doubles my build latency. The tradeoff is worth it in this case, and I suppose it gives me a little motivation to try to keep that build from going any slower. I suspect I may be able to streamline it without adding too much complexity (e.g. put only the drafts into dev/, and fill out the remainder of content by symlinking into stage/??) but it's for pursuing another time.

Another thing that adding images reminds me about is i need a much, much more streamlined workflow for inserting images into blog posts. For now it's mostly been screenshots but I expect I will have need for a stremalined workflow for photos from Photos.app and/or Immich whenever I actually get around to setting that up, for the documentation of real world things. I do think that centralizing it on pulling the information out of the clipboard is probably the way to go. At first I thought it should be enough to have a CLI program I can run, that can consume one or multiple images copied, and interactively prompt for a name to assign to them and auto place them into files/, but the bigger workflow problem is actually inserting the image link into the markdown. Actually, this seems like a solid path forward, I think it could go ahead and also clobber the clipboard as a last step with such a markdown snippet though, and that should be portable across markdown editors, which is something I'd like to have, and then the context switch of using the terminal to run this command is probably worthwhile, since any further integration with an editor to call such a cli command should be straightforward.

Next, I finally got tired of the state of the CSS. The Times New Roman, although highly readable, is just way too low effort looking.

I had a period of a few weeks (months?) where I tried to use AI a bit less to code because it does feel better to be in control. But the models keep getting better and the reduction in productivity to do things manually really gets to you too.

I'm still using aider and it's just as capable as ever. Development has been really healthy on this project. I've also gotten more active about following its Discord server this past week with the release of Gemini 2.5 Pro.

I'll show you the full details of how i made this recent CSS change, but first I want to test something out: I've been able to use this standard markdown callout syntax which renders properly in Github, Obsidian, and in neovim with the render-markdown plugin. I wonder if Marked has support for it built in as well:

[!NOTE] Here is an example note callout.

The code for it:

> [!NOTE]
> Here is an example note callout.

Ah okay, it does not render. Marked will only interpret that as a blockquote right now. I am positive there is a plugin for Marked that i can (and will) use to implement these callouts.

Recall that the reason I've been using a different Marked plugin (it's called admonition) is because admonition's syntax is much more amenable to quick editing: It uses triple-exclamation-point fencing

!!! note

content

!!!

...thus allowing me to keep the content inside the callout at "root level" markdown and making it much easier for me to rapidly insert and edit callout boundaries, which is useful for AI coding exposition to give some context of who is producing what content.

I opted to enable admonition for callouts for Marked earlier when I built this blog engine but I now realize I should ALSO go incorporate a regular callouts plugin so I can get the (now more or less standard, the first kind above) regular callout syntax so I can use it in my blog posts as well. Part of the reason for me to build this blog engine is to give a practical easy way to use git to journal on what I'm working on, and that's invariably going to lead to this system being used to collect documentation, and callouts are kind of a big feature in a lot of situations.

Back to our scheduled programming

The CSS changes I made this time came from an /ask prompt that I gave 2.5 Pro. The response contained two alternative approaches to the CSS and I found it interesting that it was able to get a VERY good understanding of how to edit the CSS even though I only provided the css file as context.

/* Add this at the top */
:root {
  --font-sans: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif;
  --text-color: #333;
  --bg-color: #fff;
  --link-color: #007bff; /* Keep blue for now, or change */
  --nav-bg: #f8f9fa;
  --nav-border: #dee2e6;
  --nav-link-bg: #e9ecef;
  --nav-link-border: #ced4da;
  --nav-link-hover-bg: var(--link-color);
  --nav-link-hover-color: #fff;
}

body {
  font-family: var(--font-sans);
  line-height: 1.6; /* Increased line height */
  color: var(--text-color);
  background-color: var(--bg-color);
  max-width: 800px; /* Add max-width for readability */
  margin: 1rem auto; /* Center body content */
  padding: 0 1rem; /* Add padding */
}

p {
  margin-bottom: 1em; /* Add space below paragraphs */
}

/* configure images to always fit into their containers in a sane way */
img {
  max-width: 100%; /* Allow images to use full width if needed */
  height: auto; /* Maintain aspect ratio */
  display: block;
  margin: 1em auto; /* Consistent vertical margin */
}
/* allow code blocks to wrap so that they become more readable when resized horizontally. Plan to expose/play with later */
code {
  white-space: pre-wrap;
  background-color: #f0f0f0; /* Subtle background for inline code */
  padding: 0.1em 0.3em;
  border-radius: 3px;
}
pre > code {
  display: block; /* Make block code take full width */
  padding: 1em; /* More padding for blocks */
  background-color: #f8f8f8; /* Slightly different bg for blocks */
  border: 1px solid #eee;
}

/* Incredibly silly, making hovertext spans visible */
span[title] {
  cursor: help;
  border-bottom: 1px dotted purple; /* Less intrusive hint */
  /* Remove background/border for cleaner look */
  /* background-color: color-mix(in srgb, purple 10%, transparent); */
  /* transition: cursor 0s linear; */
  /* transition-delay: 1s; */
}
/* span[title]:hover { */
  /* border: 1px purple solid; */
/* } */

/* updated nav styling */
nav {
  background-color: var(--nav-bg);
  border: 1px solid var(--nav-border);
  border-radius: 0.5em;
  padding: 1rem;
  font-family: var(--font-sans); /* Use variable */
  font-size: 0.9rem; /* Slightly smaller nav font */
  line-height: 1.5;
  width: 100%;
  max-width: 800px;
  min-width: 300px;
  box-sizing: border-box;
  margin: 2em auto; /* Add more space around nav */
}

nav .self {
  font-weight: bold;
  font-size: 1.1rem; /* Slightly smaller */
  margin-bottom: 1rem;
  text-align: center;
  color: var(--text-color); /* Use variable */
}

nav ul {
  list-style-type: none;
  padding: 0;
  margin: 0;
  display: grid;
  grid-template-columns: repeat(auto-fit, minmax(150px, 1fr));
  gap: 0.5rem; /* Slightly smaller gap */
}

nav ul li {
  display: flex;
}

nav ul li a {
  flex-grow: 1;
  color: var(--link-color);
  text-decoration: none;
  background-color: var(--nav-link-bg);
  border: 1px solid var(--nav-link-border);
  border-radius: 0.25rem;
  padding: 0.5rem 0.75rem; /* Slightly smaller padding */
  text-align: center;
  transition: all 0.2s ease; /* Faster transition */
}

nav ul li a:hover {
  background-color: var(--nav-link-hover-bg);
  color: var(--nav-link-hover-color);
  text-decoration: none;
  border-color: var(--nav-link-hover-bg); /* Match border */
}

/* Keep arrow styles */
nav ul li.left a::before { content: "← "; }
nav ul li.right a::after { content: " →"; }
nav ul li.up a::before { content: "↑ "; }

/* Keep children layout */
nav ul li.children { grid-column: 1 / -1; }
nav ul li.children ul {
  display: flex;
  flex-wrap: wrap;
  justify-content: center;
  gap: 0.5rem;
  margin-top: 0.5rem;
}
nav ul li.children ul li { flex-basis: calc(50% - 0.5rem); }

/* Keep media query */
@media (max-width: 600px) {
  nav ul { grid-template-columns: 1fr; }
  nav ul li.children ul li { flex-basis: 100%; }
}

/* Add this at the top */
:root {
  --font-serif: Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;
  --font-sans: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; /* For UI elements like nav */
  --text-color: #222; /* Darker text */
  --bg-color: #fdfdfd; /* Slightly off-white */
  --link-color: #800080; /* Purple links */
  --nav-bg: #f5f5f5;
  --nav-border: #ddd;
}

body {
  font-family: var(--font-serif); /* Use serif */
  line-height: 1.7; /* More line height for serif */
  color: var(--text-color);
  background-color: var(--bg-color);
  max-width: 750px; /* Slightly narrower for serif */
  margin: 1rem auto;
  padding: 0 1rem;
}

p {
  margin-bottom: 1.2em;
}

h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {
  font-family: var(--font-sans); /* Use sans-serif for headings */
  margin-top: 1.5em;
  margin-bottom: 0.5em;
}

a {
  color: var(--link-color);
  text-decoration: none;
  border-bottom: 1px solid color-mix(in srgb, var(--link-color) 30%, transparent); /* Subtle underline */
}
a:hover {
  border-bottom-color: var(--link-color); /* Solid underline on hover */
}


/* configure images to always fit into their containers in a sane way */
img {
  max-width: 100%;
  height: auto;
  display: block;
  margin: 1.5em auto;
  border-radius: 4px; /* Slightly rounded images */
}
/* allow code blocks to wrap */
code {
  white-space: pre-wrap;
  font-family: monospace; /* Ensure monospace */
  background-color: #f0f0f0;
  padding: 0.1em 0.3em;
  border-radius: 3px;
  font-size: 0.9em; /* Slightly smaller code */
}
pre {
  margin: 1.5em 0; /* Add space around code blocks */
  padding: 1em;
  background-color: #f8f8f8;
  border: 1px solid #eee;
  border-radius: 4px;
  overflow-x: auto; /* Allow horizontal scroll if needed */
}
pre > code {
  display: block;
  padding: 0; /* Remove padding from inner code */
  background-color: transparent; /* Remove double background */
  border: none;
}

/* Incredibly silly, making hovertext spans visible */
span[title] {
  cursor: help;
  border-bottom: 1px dotted #800080; /* Match link color */
}

/* updated nav styling */
nav {
  background-color: var(--nav-bg);
  border: 1px solid var(--nav-border);
  border-radius: 8px; /* Softer radius */
  padding: 1rem 1.5rem; /* More padding */
  font-family: var(--font-sans); /* Sans-serif for nav */
  font-size: 0.95rem;
  line-height: 1.5;
  width: 100%;
  max-width: 750px; /* Match body */
  min-width: 300px;
  box-sizing: border-box;
  margin: 2em auto;
}

nav .self {
  font-weight: bold;
  font-size: 1.1rem;
  margin-bottom: 1rem;
  text-align: center;
  color: var(--text-color);
}

nav ul {
  list-style-type: none;
  padding: 0;
  margin: 0;
  display: flex; /* Simpler flex layout for main nav items */
  flex-wrap: wrap; /* Allow wrapping */
  justify-content: center; /* Center items */
  gap: 1.5rem; /* More space between main items */
}

nav ul li {
  display: flex; /* Keep for consistency */
  margin-bottom: 0.5rem; /* Add space if wraps */
}

/* Simplify nav links - remove background/border */
nav ul li a {
  flex-grow: 1;
  color: var(--link-color);
  text-decoration: none;
  background-color: transparent;
  border: none; /* Remove border */
  border-radius: 0; /* Remove radius */
  padding: 0.25rem 0.5rem; /* Less padding */
  text-align: center;
  transition: color 0.2s ease;
  border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; /* Space for hover underline */
}

nav ul li a:hover {
  color: #500050; /* Darker purple on hover */
  background-color: transparent; /* Ensure no background */
  text-decoration: none;
  border-bottom-color: #800080; /* Underline on hover */
}

/* Adjust arrow positioning if needed */
nav ul li.left a::before { content: "← "; }
nav ul li.right a::after { content: " →"; }
nav ul li.up a::before { content: "↑ "; }

/* Children styling */
nav ul li.children {
  width: 100%; /* Ensure full width */
  margin-top: 1rem; /* Space above children */
  border-top: 1px solid var(--nav-border); /* Separator */
  padding-top: 1rem;
}

nav ul li.children ul {
  display: flex;
  flex-wrap: wrap;
  justify-content: center;
  gap: 1rem; /* Space between child links */
  margin-top: 0; /* Remove default margin */
}

nav ul li.children ul li {
   flex-basis: auto; /* Let them size naturally */
   margin-bottom: 0; /* Remove extra margin */
}

/* Media query might need adjustment based on new nav layout */
@media (max-width: 600px) {
  nav ul {
    flex-direction: column; /* Stack main items vertically */
    align-items: center;
    gap: 0.5rem; /* Less gap when stacked */
  }
  nav ul li.children ul {
     gap: 0.5rem; /* Less gap for children */
  }
}

/* Example dark-theme.css */
:root {
  --text-color: #eee;
  --bg-color: #222;
  --link-color: #90caf9; /* Light blue for dark mode */
  --nav-bg: #333;
  --nav-border: #555;
  --nav-link-bg: #444;
  --nav-link-border: #666;
  --nav-link-hover-bg: var(--link-color);
  --nav-link-hover-color: #111;
  /* etc. */
}

I had a good feeling about this response, but since I had decided to use /ask to ask it, I knew that I would burn an extra one of my 50-a-day 2.5 Pro prompts by just telling it to go ahead, so I came up with a little workaround:

• open .aider.chat.history.md (i use nvim)
• find the message from 2.5 pro i liked, copy it
• open a new aider with aider --model=gemini/gemini-2.0-flash
• /code to exit architect mode (i have architect = true specified in my aider conf)
• /paste

That is awkward but allows me to save a query. In retrospect probably not worth it.

The response was fairly straightforward. I neglected to prompt 2.0-flash with my choice of which of the two alternatives presented by 2.5 Pro I wanted to opt for first, since /paste doesn't give me an opportunity to do that, which I should have thought about, but the interesting bit is the final code delta. To me it feels like it really understood the code very well and took pains to preserve comments I already had (something i've never seen an LLM do a good job of before) and add comments to help understand its additions.

When I tested it it became clear that very few if any issues were introduced with this CSS change.

diff --git a/resources/my.css b/resources/my.css
index e0abd45..fa55396 100644
--- a/resources/my.css
+++ b/resources/my.css
@@ -1,43 +1,87 @@
+/* Add this at the top */
+:root {
+  --font-sans: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif;
+  --text-color: #333;
+  --bg-color: #fff;
+  --link-color: #007bff; /* Keep blue for now, or change */
+  --nav-bg: #f8f9fa;
+  --nav-border: #dee2e6;
+  --nav-link-bg: #e9ecef;
+  --nav-link-border: #ced4da;
+  --nav-link-hover-bg: var(--link-color);
+  --nav-link-hover-color: #fff;
+}
+
+body {
+  font-family: var(--font-sans);
+  line-height: 1.6; /* Increased line height */
+  color: var(--text-color);
+  background-color: var(--bg-color);
+  max-width: 800px; /* Add max-width for readability */
+  margin: 1rem auto; /* Center body content */
+  padding: 0 1rem; /* Add padding */
+}
+
+p {
+  margin-bottom: 1em; /* Add space below paragraphs */
+}
+
 /* configure images to always fit into their containers in a sane way */
 img {
-  max-width: 80%;
+  max-width: 100%; /* Allow images to use full width if needed */
+  height: auto; /* Maintain aspect ratio */
   display: block;
-  margin: 0 auto;
+  margin: 1em auto; /* Consistent vertical margin */
 }
 /* allow code blocks to wrap so that they become more readable when resized horizontally. Plan to expose/play with later */
-code { white-space: pre-wrap; }
+code {
+  white-space: pre-wrap;
+  background-color: #f0f0f0; /* Subtle background for inline code */
+  padding: 0.1em 0.3em;
+  border-radius: 3px;
+}
+pre > code {
+  display: block; /* Make block code take full width */
+  padding: 1em; /* More padding for blocks */
+  background-color: #f8f8f8; /* Slightly different bg for blocks */
+  border: 1px solid #eee;
+}
+
 /* Incredibly silly, making hovertext spans visible */
 span[title] {
   cursor: help;
-  border-radius: 0.5em;
-  background-color: color-mix(in srgb, purple 10%, transparent);
-  transition: cursor 0s linear;
-  transition-delay: 1s;
-}
-span[title]:hover {
-  border: 1px purple solid;
+  border-bottom: 1px dotted purple; /* Less intrusive hint */
+  /* Remove background/border for cleaner look */
+  /* background-color: color-mix(in srgb, purple 10%, transparent); */
+  /* transition: cursor 0s linear; */
+  /* transition-delay: 1s; */
 }
+/* span[title]:hover { */
+  /* border: 1px purple solid; */
+/* } */
+
 /* updated nav styling */
 nav {
-  background-color: #f8f9fa;
-  border: 1px solid #dee2e6;
+  background-color: var(--nav-bg);
+  border: 1px solid var(--nav-border);
   border-radius: 0.5em;
   padding: 1rem;
-  font-family: Arial, sans-serif;
-  font-size: 1rem;
+  font-family: var(--font-sans); /* Use variable */
+  font-size: 0.9rem; /* Slightly smaller nav font */
   line-height: 1.5;
   width: 100%;
   max-width: 800px;
   min-width: 300px;
   box-sizing: border-box;
-  margin: 0 auto;
+  margin: 2em auto; /* Add more space around nav */
 }
 
 nav .self {
   font-weight: bold;
-  font-size: 1.2rem;
+  font-size: 1.1rem; /* Slightly smaller */
   margin-bottom: 1rem;
   text-align: center;
+  color: var(--text-color); /* Use variable */
 }
 
 nav ul {
@@ -46,7 +90,7 @@ nav ul {
   margin: 0;
   display: grid;
   grid-template-columns: repeat(auto-fit, minmax(150px, 1fr));
-  gap: 1rem;
+  gap: 0.5rem; /* Slightly smaller gap */
 }
 
 nav ul li {
@@ -55,38 +99,30 @@ nav ul li {
 
 nav ul li a {
   flex-grow: 1;
-  color: #007bff;
+  color: var(--link-color);
   text-decoration: none;
-  background-color: #e9ecef;
-  border: 1px solid #ced4da;
+  background-color: var(--nav-link-bg);
+  border: 1px solid var(--nav-link-border);
   border-radius: 0.25rem;
-  padding: 0.75rem 1rem;
+  padding: 0.5rem 0.75rem; /* Slightly smaller padding */
   text-align: center;
-  transition: all 0.3s ease;
+  transition: all 0.2s ease; /* Faster transition */
 }
 
 nav ul li a:hover {
-  background-color: #007bff;
-  color: #ffffff;
+  background-color: var(--nav-link-hover-bg);
+  color: var(--nav-link-hover-color);
   text-decoration: none;
+  border-color: var(--nav-link-hover-bg); /* Match border */
 }
 
-nav ul li.left a::before {
-  content: "← ";
-}
-
-nav ul li.right a::after {
-  content: " →";
-}
-
-nav ul li.up a::before {
-  content: "↑ ";
-}
-
-nav ul li.children {
-  grid-column: 1 / -1;
-}
+/* Keep arrow styles */
+nav ul li.left a::before { content: "← "; }
+nav ul li.right a::after { content: " →"; }
+nav ul li.up a::before { content: "↑ "; }
 
+/* Keep children layout */
+nav ul li.children { grid-column: 1 / -1; }
 nav ul li.children ul {
   display: flex;
   flex-wrap: wrap;
@@ -94,17 +130,10 @@ nav ul li.children ul {
   gap: 0.5rem;
   margin-top: 0.5rem;
 }
+nav ul li.children ul li { flex-basis: calc(50% - 0.5rem); }
 
-nav ul li.children ul li {
-  flex-basis: calc(50% - 0.5rem);
-}
-
+/* Keep media query */
 @media (max-width: 600px) {
-  nav ul {
-    grid-template-columns: 1fr;
-  }
-  
-  nav ul li.children ul li {
-    flex-basis: 100%;
-  }
+  nav ul { grid-template-columns: 1fr; }
+  nav ul li.children ul li { flex-basis: 100%; }
 }

Encouraged by this I asked for one more change... (Continued in the next page, because this next section is a great case study in AI coding and I want to separate it so I can easily share it.)