@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ - erb
 :permalink: july-2014
 -----
 
-<p>1 article was written in <em>July 2014</em>:</p>
+<p>2 articles were written in <em>July 2014</em>:</p>
 <ul>
 	<% articles_by_month.select{|i| i[0] == "July 2014"}[0][1].each do |a|%>
 		<%= render 'dated_article', :article => a %>

@@ -0,0 +1,298 @@ 
+-----
+:permalink: litestore
+:title: Introducing LiteStore
+:subtitle: A tiny, lightweight, self-contained, RESTful document store
+:type: article
+:intro: |
+  Lately I have become more and more interested in client-side single-page applications. Nowadays you can write your web apps in Javascript using your favorite framework, without any server-side logic, but you obviously still need:
+   
+   * some web service to retrieve and persist your application data.
+   * a web server to serve the source code and the static assets of your web application.
+  
+  NodeJS is probably one of the easiest backend to setup for prototyping SPAs. It is very easy to create a simple web server in Node and to implement a simple REST API using Express or a similar framework, but you still need to install node and write some code to wire up your backend.
+
+  I wanted something even more lazy then that. I wanted a fully _self-contained_ program able to:
+
+  * Serve static files
+  * Act as a simple JSON document store
+  * Provide a simple REST API to work with
+  * (bonus!) provide a way to pack web apps for easy distribution
+
+  ...and that's how I ended up developing _LiteStore_.
+
+:tags:
+- webdevelopment
+- databases
+- litestore
+- opensource
+:date: 2015-09-20 21:01:45.000000000 +01:00
+-----
+Lately I have become more and more interested in client-side single-page applications. Nowadays you can write your web apps in Javascript using your favorite framework, without any server-side logic, but you obviously still need:
+   
+   * some web service to retrieve and persist your application data.
+   * a web server to serve the source code and the static assets of your web application.
+  
+NodeJS is probably one of the easiest backend to setup for prototyping SPAs. It is very easy to create a simple web server in Node and to implement a simple REST API using Express or a similar framework, but you still need to install node and write some code to wire up your backend.
+
+I wanted something even more lazy then that. I wanted a fully _self-contained_ program able to:
+
+  * Serve static files
+  * Act as a simple JSON document store
+  * Provide a simple REST API to work with
+  * (bonus!) provide a way to pack web apps for easy distribution
+
+...and that's how I ended up developing _LiteStore_.
+
+[LiteStore](/litestore) is a lightweight, self-contained, RESTful, searchable, multi-format, NoSQL document store and web server. That sounds pretentious, but it is essentially an accurate description of what LiteStore is and does. 
+
+It is built using the [Nim](http://nim-lang.org/) programming language and its Administration App (see below) is built using [Mithril](https://lhorie.github.io/mithril/), two relatively less-known projects, both of which I highly recommend if you want to take a break from more mainstream programming languages like C# or Java and Javascript frameworks like AngularJS or React.
+
+
+### Downloading LiteStore
+
+The easiest way to understand what LiteStore does, is to try it out. Simply download a release package from the [GitHub repo](https://github.com/h3rald/litestore) (or from [here](/litestore) for your convenience) that is suitable for your operating system and architecture.
+
+The release package contains the following files:
+
+* **litestore** / **litestore.exe** — The LiteStore executable.
+* **LiteStore_UserGuide.html** — The official user guide describing the program, its usage, architecture, API, etc.
+* **data.db** — The default data store file, containing the LiteStore Administration App.
+
+That's all. No libraries to download, no installers, just an executable file. I love self-contained programs.
+
+### Running LiteStore
+
+To start a LiteStore server with the default settings:
+
+1. Open a command prompt in the directory containing the LiteStore executable and the data.db data store file.
+2. Enter **litestore** in the command prompt.
+
+_or_ (on Windows):
+
+1. Double-click **litestore.exe**
+
+You should get a message similar to the following:
+
+<samp>2015-09-20 @ 05:03:36    INFO: LiteStore v1.0.0 started on 127.0.0.1:9500.</samp>
+
+...meaning that LiteStore is running on the specified address.
+
+If you open a browser and type <http://localhost:9500> you should get the following JSON response:
+
+```
+{
+    "version": "LiteStore v1.0.0",
+    "datastore_version": 1,
+    "size": "4.83 MB",
+    "read_only": false,
+    "log_level": "info",
+    "directory": null,
+    "mount": false,
+    "total_documents": 77,
+    "total_tags": 18,
+    "tags": [
+        { "$dir:admin": 77 },
+        { "$format:binary": 14 },
+        { "$format:text": 63 },
+        { "$subtype:css": 3 },
+        { "$subtype:html": 1 },
+        { "$subtype:javascript": 36 },
+        { "$subtype:octet-stream": 2 },
+        { "$subtype:png": 8 },
+        { "$subtype:svg+xml": 1 },
+        { "$subtype:vnd.ms-fontobject": 1 },
+        { "$subtype:x-font-otf": 1 },
+        { "$subtype:x-font-ttf": 1 },
+        { "$subtype:x-icon": 1 },
+        { "$subtype:x-less": 10 },
+        { "$subtype:x-markdown": 12 },
+        { "$type:application": 41 },
+        { "$type:image": 10 },
+        { "$type:text": 26 }
+    ]
+}
+```
+
+Congrats, LiteStore is up and running!
+
+### Digging Deeper...
+
+LiteStore is, first and foremost, a RESTful document store. Think CouchDb or MongoDb, but smaller, much smaller. Here's basically what happens when you run the **litestore** command:
+
+1. LiteStore checks for a file named **data.db** within the current directory and creates one if it doesn't exists.
+2. LiteStore assumes that such file is a properly-formatted LiteStore data store file and tries to connect to it.
+3. If all goes well, LiteStore starts a simple HTTP server on port 9500, ready to receive HTTP requests.
+
+(The path of the data store file, the port, etc. are all configurable settings &mdash; run [litestore -h](class:cmd) for more details)
+
+Now, if you access <http://localhost:9500> while LiteStore is running, you'll get JSON response listing some stats about the currently-loaded data store file, and some information on stored documents and tags, if any. The **data.db** file that ships with LiteStore already contains some documents. Well, actually it contains _a web application to administer LiteStore itself_.
+
+### The LiteStore Administration App
+
+Now try accessing the following URL:
+
+<http://localhost:9500/docs/admin/index.html>
+
+If all goes well, you should see the following page:
+
+![Info](/images/litestore/litestore_info.png)
+
+You are now viewing the LiteStore Administration App, a simple single-page application implemented on top of the [Mithril](https://lhorie.github.io/mithril/) Javascript framework. The cool part is that this application is stored within the **data.db** file and is being served by LiteStore itself.
+
+The LiteStore Administration App is an example of single-page application developed for LiteStore: it uses pretty much all LiteStore functionalities that are exposes by the LiteStore REST API. 
+
+On the home page you can see the same stats displayed on LiteStore root URL (<http://localhost:9500>), but you can also click any of the tag links to view documents by tag:
+
+![Tag](/images/litestore/litestore_tag.png)
+
+...and clicking a document title will display the document content and tags:
+
+![Document](/images/litestore/litestore_doc.png)
+
+Note that it is also possible to create, upload, edit or delete documents and manage tags:
+
+![Document Operations](/images/litestore/litestore_doc_ops.png)
+
+But perhaps the best feature of this web app (and of LiteStore itself) is the full-text search capability:
+
+![Document Search](/images/litestore/litestore_search.png)
+
+By leveraging LiteStore search API (which in turn leverages SQLite exceptional [FTS4 extension](https://www.sqlite.org/fts3.html)), it is pretty easy to build fast search-oriented web applications.
+
+### Under the Hood
+
+By now you are probably wonder how this whole thing can work. This is best explained with a simple exercise: let's export and re-import the Administration App!
+
+First of all, stop the LiteStore instance by pressing <kbd>CTRL+C</kbd> within the prompt window.
+
+Now execute the following command, from the same directory where you started LiteStore:
+
+> %terminal%
+>
+> litestore -d:admin export
+
+LiteStore will create a directory called [admin](class:dir). If you browse its contents, you will find the full source code and assets of the LiteStore Administration App (also available in the LiteStore [Github repo](https://github.com/h3rald/litestore/)).
+
+Now delete the [data.db](class:file) file. Don't worry, you can always get a new one from a release package, at worst.
+
+Run LiteStore again, with no parameters:
+
+> %terminal%
+>
+> litestore 
+
+If you access <http://localhost:9500> in your browser, you'll get the following response:
+
+```
+{
+  version: "LiteStore v1.0.0",
+  datastore_version: 1,
+  size: "0.02 MB",
+  read_only: false,
+  log_level: "info",
+  directory: null,
+  mount: false,
+  total_documents: 0,
+  total_tags: 0,
+  tags: [ ]
+}
+```
+
+This is basically saying that the datastore file is empty. And indeed LiteStore just created a new data.db file. If you try accessing the URL of the Administration App (<http://localhost:9500/docs/admin/index.html>) you won't go very far:
+
+```
+{
+  error: "Document 'admin/index.html' not found."
+}
+```
+
+As expected, because the datastore file is empty.
+
+Now stop LiteStore and execute the following command:
+
+> %terminal%
+>
+> litestore -d:admin import
+
+This command will import the contents of the [admin](class:dir) folder into the datastore file, creating documents and tags automatically.
+
+If you run LiteStore again, you'll see that everything is back in order, and you can access the Administration App again.
+
+### The HTTP REST API
+
+The HTTP REST API exposed by LiteStore allows you to retrieve documents in their original content type, so for example:
+
+* <http://localhost:9500/docs/admin/index.html> retrieves the contents of the [admin/index.html](class:kwd) document in HTML format.
+* <http://localhost:9500/docs/admin/index.html?raw=true> retrieves the [admin/index.html](class:kwd) document in raw (JSON) format.
+
+This is why when you access the first URL you are able to see the app.
+
+Queries that return a list of documents, on the other hand, always return a JSON response. For example, <http://localhost:9500/docs?tags=$subtype:css&contents=false> returns all the documents whose subtype is set to [css](class:kwd) (without displaying their contents in this case):
+
+```
+{
+    "tags": [
+        "$subtype:css"
+    ],
+    "total": 3,
+    "execution_time": 0.0005269999999999997,
+    "results": [
+        {
+            "id": "admin/styles/bootstrap-theme.min.css",
+            "created": "2015-09-20T06:23:10Z",
+            "modified": null,
+            "tags": [
+                "$type:text",
+                "$subtype:css",
+                "$format:text",
+                "$dir:admin"
+            ]
+        },
+        {
+            "id": "admin/styles/bootstrap.min.css",
+            "created": "2015-09-20T06:23:10Z",
+            "modified": null,
+            "tags": [
+                "$type:text",
+                "$subtype:css",
+                "$format:text",
+                "$dir:admin"
+            ]
+        },
+        {
+            "id": "admin/styles/litestore.css",
+            "created": "2015-09-20T06:23:10Z",
+            "modified": null,
+            "tags": [
+                "$type:text",
+                "$subtype:css",
+                "$format:text",
+                "$dir:admin"
+            ]
+        }
+    ]
+}
+```
+
+For all the details on the HTTP REST API, see [the guide](/litestore/LiteStore_UserGuide.htm#HTTP.API.Reference).
+
+### Conclusion
+
+LiteStore does not aim to be the _next big thing_ in the NoSQL document store landscape, but it shines when used as a simple and smart way to prototype single-page applications, or implement personal apps like a local Wiki. 
+
+Personally, I use it whenever I have to prepare a quick demo for a proof-of-concept SPA, and I don't want to have to worry about the backend. The Administration App is a great starting point to see how to use the LiteStore API to build an application. Even if you don't have any experience with the Mithril framework (neither did I until I built this!), you can have a look at the [models.js](https://github.com/h3rald/litestore/blob/master/admin/js/models.js) file to see how to access pretty much every functionality exposed by the API. I also managed to wire up a quick and dirty AngularJS service to do something similar, and it wasn't too hard.
+
+I hope some of you will find LiteStore useful and will give it a shot. If you want to contribute, feel free to fork the [repo](https://github.com/h3rald/litestore/) and send me a pull request. It would be great to have some [Mithril](https://lhorie.github.io/mithril/) or [Nim](http://nim-lang.org/) expert to have a look at this and improve it!
+
+
+### Credits
+
+Special thanks to the following individuals, communities and organizations that made LiteStore possible:
+
+* Dwayne Richard Hipp and all the contributors to [SQLite](http://www.sqlite.org/), the true gem that powers LiteStore.
+* Andreas Rumpf and all the contributors to the [Nim Programming Language](http://nim-lang.org/), used to develop LiteStore.
+* Leo Horie, for creating the [Mithril Javascript Framework](https://lhorie.github.io/mithril/), used to develop the LiteStore Administration App.
+* The creators and contributors to the [Bootstrap](http://getbootstrap.com/) CSS and Javascript framework, used by the LiteStore Administration App.
+* The creators and contributors to the [Ace Editor](http://ace.c9.io/), used by the LiteStore Administration App.
+* Cristopher Jeffrey and all the contributors to the [Marked Javascript Library](https://github.com/chjj/marked) used by the LiteStore Administration App.
+

@@ -14,7 +14,10 @@ version: 1.0.0
 -----
 
 <div class="jumbotron">
-  <h2 class="centered">LiteStore</h2>
+  <h2 class="centered">
+    LiteStore<br>
+    <img src="/images/litestore/litestore.png" style="margin-left:-35px" />
+  </h2>
   <p class="donthyphenate">A lightweight, self-contained, RESTful, multi-format NoSQL document store server written in <a href="http://nim-lang.org">Nim</a> and powered by a <a href="http://www.sqlite.org">SQLite</a> backend for storage. It aims to be a very simple and lightweight backend ideal for prototyping and testing REST APIs and client-side, single-page applications. </p>
 </div>
 

@@ -31,6 +31,8 @@ body {
   padding-top: 70px;
 }
 
+img { max-width: 100%; }
+
 a, a:link, a:visited, a:active {
   color: @link-color;
   word-break: break-word;

@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@ 
+-----
+:title: H3RALD - Tag 'litestore' (Atom Feed)
+:type: feed
+:permalink: tags/litestore/atom
+-----
+<%= atom_feed(:articles => articles_tagged_with('litestore'))%>

@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@ 
+-----
+:title: H3RALD - Tag 'litestore' (RSS Feed)
+:type: feed
+:permalink: tags/litestore/rss
+-----
+<%= rss_feed(:articles => articles_tagged_with('litestore'))%>

@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@ 
+-----
+:title: 'Tag: litestore'
+:type: page
+:filters_pre:
+- erb
+:feed: "/tags/litestore/"
+:feed_title: Tag 'litestore'
+:permalink: litestore
+-----
+
+<p>1 item is tagged with <em>litestore</em>:</p>
+<ul>
+	<% articles_tagged_with('litestore').each do |a| %>
+		<%= render 'dated_article', :article => a %>
+	<% end %>
+</ul>
+		

@@ -8,8 +8,8 @@ var disqus_identifier = "<% @item[:permalink]%>";
 					var disqus_developer = true;
 					(function() {
 					var dsq = document.createElement('script'); dsq.type = 'text/javascript'; dsq.async = true;
-					dsq.src = 'http://h3rald.disqus.com/embed.js';
+					dsq.src = 'https://h3rald.disqus.com/embed.js';
 					(document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0] || document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]).appendChild(dsq);
 					})();
 					</script>
-					<noscript>Please enable JavaScript to view the <a href="http://disqus.com/?ref_noscript=h3rald">comments powered by Disqus.</a></noscript>
+					<noscript>Please enable JavaScript to view the <a href="https://disqus.com/?ref_noscript=h3rald">comments powered by Disqus.</a></noscript>