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April 2026 · What I've Been Up To

From ESP32 to cloud server: the birth of a 90s personal blog

Website Framework Setup

  • From ESP32 to Cloud Server
    On a whim, I decided to build a WEB 1.0-styled personal blog. The last time I had a public blog was before the pandemic. Initially deployed on an ESP32-S3, it was later migrated to a cloud server — the ESP32's performance just couldn't keep up.
    In recent years, I've grown increasingly fond of retro hardware, so the overall design adopts a style close to the Windows 95 era: pure static HTML, optimized for 1024×768 resolution, with special compatibility work for IE5.5.
  • Component Templates & Automated Build
    The site is driven by PowerShell build scripts, with HTML templates separated into the src/components/ directory. Header, banner, sidebars, and footer are each independent, with data injected via placeholders. The build process automatically scans blog metadata (date, title, tags) and supports draft mode (draft: true).
  • Footnotes & Custom TOC
    Implemented a [^N] footnote system — references are automatically converted to superscript anchor links, definitions are rendered at the end of the article with bidirectional jumping. Supports cross-line definitions and multi-paragraph footnotes. Articles can use toc: Title | #anchor at the top for a custom sidebar table of contents, falling back to automatic heading extraction when empty.

    • Guestbook Evolution

  • CGI + TXT Storage
    The guestbook uses CGI for submission processing and pipe-delimited txt files for storage. The build process reads the last 20 messages and injects them into the page — no database needed. Supports email input and IP display/hide (checkbox).
  • Email Reply Notifications
    When a message contains @username, the system automatically detects it and sends an email notification. Supports QQ Foxmail SMTP (port 465 SSL). The email template is 90s retro style — table layout + 3D borders + Win95 color scheme. The reply button auto-fills the @mention.
  • Blog Editor
    Developed a web-based editor (/cgi-bin/editor.py) with formatting toolbar, table generation, footnote insertion, character count, and new-window preview. Compatible with IE5.5 (TextRange selection fallback, String.trim polyfill). Supports bilingual content editing and article list management.

    • Bilingual Support & Internationalization

  • Full site supports Chinese/English language switching, build scripts support -Lang parameter
  • All 8 blog posts and homepage translated to English, English content separated into blog/en/
  • Both sidebars, archive page, and tag cloud fully bilingualized
  • Added English sidebar versions (sidebar-left-en.html, sidebar-right-en.html)
  • Fixed archive/tags page language switch URL placeholder issues

    • Toolbox & Utilities

  • Added toolbox page (/cgi-bin/toolbox.py): Base64/URL encode/decode, MD5/SHA hashing, timestamp conversion, character/word count, case conversion, password generator (random/PIN/memorable word), IP lookup
  • On-site search (no JS required), CGI full-text matching against search_index.txt
  • RSS feed + sitemap.xml, fixed Chinese encoding issues
  • Article tag cloud page with tag-based filtering
  • Article archive page grouped by year-month
  • Custom 404 page
  • Server logging with automatic gzip compression of old logs

    • Other Improvements

  • Unified UTF-8 encoding across all site files, fixed UTF-16LE compatibility issues
  • Removed global <center> wrapper from main content area, headings independently centered
  • /index.html → / 301 redirect
  • Old Websites Collection expanded to 26 sites (OldWeb.today, ClassicReload, Marginalia Search, etc.)
  • Added Feature Example Article covering all feature usage
  • Sidebar added latest articles list + changelog
  • Blog bottom previous/next navigation, auto-sorted by date
  • web_server.py added nolog parameter

    • Bug Fix Log

  • Footnote cross-line matching: multi-line definitions no longer truncated by </font>
  • editor.py CGI POST double-read: stdin consumed twice causing form fields to be lost
  • Guestbook email input name attribute duplicate, email was never saved
  • RSS Chinese encoding: Get-Content needs explicit -Encoding UTF8
  • Path traversal vulnerability: /cgi-bin/../../data/ could bypass protected directories
  • Build script $ character escape error causing footnote definition removal to fail
  • editor.py newline round-trip: \r residue causing extra blank lines during editing

    • —— Written on April 27, 2026, a long April weekend

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