Guido Flohr

Displaying a bunch of html files in your own local web server is easier than it sounds. The package manager npm for the web application framework Node.js comes with a zero-configuration http server that can be started within seconds without any configuration.

In a previous post I had illustrated that a regular AngularJS filter is seldom sufficient to implement a search because the data displayed differs significantly from the data stored in the application model. Today I will present a solution to the problem that applies the filter to exactly what the user sees.

The static site generator Jekyll stores tags site-wide. You need a little Ruby code if you want to want to maintain them per-language instead, as you would want on a multi-lingual site. In a previous post "Multilingual Web Sites with Jekyll" I had described how to set up a site with Jekyll supporting documents in multiple languages. One thing that was still missing was support for tags respectively keywords.

With angular filters you can realize full text searches in small data sets with minimal efforts. This is at least what the documentation suggests. In real-world applications, a naïve application of filters to the data model usually leads to more or less arbitrary behavior.

After waiting years on my TODO list I recently decided to tackle the project "web site". Since I no longer work for Imperia I was looking for a light-weight alternative. I did not want to install PHP on my server, ruling out a lot of options. A colleague finally recommended Jekyll. Its simple semi-static approach reminded me of Imperia and I decided to give it a shot.