Our little blog is enjoying considerable popularity. We're thinking about open sourcing it, just so everyone can enjoy simple, beautiful publishing. Here's what you would get:

This blog is designed to put the reading experience first. Everything the reader sees is responsive and scales perfectly to all screen sizes and devices. In a nutshell: no frustration caused by small, illegible text, no tiny clickable items, but full focus on content instead.

Technology

This blog is based on the latest Ruby 3.2, which is all you need besides a database that supports it. We're using a MySQL database. We stuck very closely to the code conventions so you'll have no trouble expanding and customizing it to your own needs. Of course, we'll maintain it and keep it up-to-date on GitHub.

Default features

• 960x540 px hero graphics for posts
• upload default hero images that you want to use more frequently
• customizable generic titles & subtitles
• automatic teaser for the article overview
• six headline styles according to priority
• italics & bold text

• block quotes

• images, lists, links

• code examples in markdown
  javascript
function fancyAlert(arg) {
if(arg) {
$.facebox({div:'#foo'})
}
}


• tags for articles

• G+ link to social network discussion

• multiple authors and author information

• add documents for download

• formatting help

• direct RSS reader access

• customizable footer

By default, the featured post (usually the latest one) is fully displayed, but you may choose your featured post. Below that, the user finds an overview of all the articles published with a small hero graphic and a teaser. If you have more than ten articles in your overview, pagination kicks in.

Non-Features

• management hassle
• rights and legal bullshit
• complicated settings
• disco lights

Design

Fonts:

Headlines for posts and H1.s are set in "Museo", the rest is "Ubuntu" — clean, future-oriented, democratic, appealing.

So, an H1 headline would look like this

Whereas, an H2 looks like this

And so on

And so forth

Until, finally

You come to an H6.

Sometimes, it's nice to use those headline tags for highlighting continuing text, too, or for footnotes, additional comments, whatever you can imagine.

Colors:

Opoloo orange and shades of grey

Flat:

Our Android background clearly shows in the completely flat design approach. No drop shadows, no gloss, no distractions.

For Developers

Nearly everything about this blog template can be customized to your personal needs and preferences. If you're only the tiniest bit tech-savvy, you have almost all the possibilities in the world with this blog.

Frontend

Just to be clear: frontend is the visual representation of the backend — everything you actually see when you're editing, curating, and managing your blog posts.
The frontend has received considerable Opoloo love and is designed to work simply and beautifully, from action bar to usability issues, so you can use your time thinking about your content, instead of puzzling where to click next.

Manage Articles

Edit Articles

Preview

You'll be able to find everything you need on GitHub.
But before we do this: would you (or your clients) be interested in another blog template?
Let us know on G+.