A blog should give its words a good place to be read. Northline keeps the blue accents, illustrated article lists and sidebar of the original theme, while Astro and Markdown take care of the content behind them.
There is no elaborate editor to learn. Open a text file, write down an idea, and publish when it is ready.
Why a static blog?
An article does not need to be generated again for every reader. Preparing the HTML at build time means the complete page is ready when somebody opens it.
Day-to-day maintenance starts to feel like looking after a writing folder. Content and code can share version history, and moving to a different tool does not mean leaving your words behind.
A tool should make it easier to record an idea, not add another preparation step.
Start with a Markdown file
English articles live in src/content/posts/en/; Chinese articles live in src/content/posts/zh/. Matching filenames connect translated versions. The frontmatter at the top describes the article; the rest of the file is the body.
---
title: My first article
description: A short introduction to this article.
date: 2026-10-31
category: tech
tags: [Astro, Writing]
---You can use headings, lists, quotes, code blocks, pictures, tables and HTML. An English file called first-post.md becomes /blog/posts/first-post/. Its Chinese counterpart becomes /blog/zh/posts/first-post/.
A place for unfinished ideas
Add draft: true while you are still writing. Drafts stay out of the homepage, category lists, archives, search index, sitemap and RSS feed until you decide to publish them.
A familiar look, a lighter content system
Homepage slides are independent of articles, so changing a banner does not disturb the reading list. Categories, topic links, sidebar counts and article outlines come from the published content in the current language.
| Page | What it helps you do |
|---|---|
| Home | Find the latest articles and browse a category |
| Article | Read, jump between sections and copy a link |
| Archives | Look back by month or explore a topic |
| Search | Find a title, tag or phrase from an article |
Leave your attention with the words
Being lightweight is about letting each feature serve writing and reading. Once ideas can be organised clearly and presented quietly, the blog has already done its most important work.
Change the site name, replace these sample articles, and start with one small question or a short account of something you tried.