lit-element

For a while, I've been looking for a decent way to build a very simple website that could host both blog post like things and fuller pages. I wanted something that didn't require a build step (like every single static-site-from-markdown generator. The main things I wanted were:

1. No build step
2. Easy to edit
3. Very customisable, especially styling. Ideally, no built-in styling
4. Didn't require a ton of code to get something basic working

I've been using lit-element on a side project for a while now, which has been very rewarding. It's great to work with, and it lets you use a ton of stuff that is (thank goodness) built into modern browsers. So, I gave it a shot.

It's been nice so far. There are downsides, like having to write posts in plain HTML as opposed to Markdown. I also still need to figure out a nicer way to import lit-element without using unpkg, since the long tail of that can be very slow. There's also a fair amount of CSS duplication, as the same stuff that has to be top-level also has to be included in most of the custom elements' stylesheets. All that being said, though, I think I'll stick with this for now. It certainly gives me the flexibility I've been looking for.