Eleventy starter

Very opiniated Eleventy starter based on the workflow suggested by Andy Bell's https://buildexcellentwebsit.es/.

• Eleventy starter
  • Preview
  • Features
  • First steps
  • Deploy directly to Netlify
  • Development
    • Install dependencies
    • Working locally
    • Creating a production build
  • Logbook
    • 22-11-24
    • 22-11-04
    • 22-10-30
    • 22-10-03
    • 22-10-04
  • Credits and Thank yous

Preview

https://eleventy-excellent.netlify.app/

Features

This starter includes:

• The whole CSS workflow as suggested by buildexcellentwebsit.es
• Accessible site navigation, editable in src/_data/navigation.js
• Image optimization with Eleventy-img (see blog post)
• Youtube embed with lite-youtube (see blog post)
• Easy resource fetching with eleventy-fetch (see blog post)
• Syntax highlighting via eleventy-plugin-syntaxhighlight (see blog post)
• SEO basics (XML-sitemap, metadata)
• dayjs handling dates & times
• 301 redirects for netlify
• Advanced markdown handling
• Bundling via esbuild
• RSS feed
• Links to spcial networks in footer
• Mastodon domain verification snippet

First steps

• Important: edit meta data in src/_data/meta.js, it's being used all over the template.
• Search for 'eleventy-excellent.netlify.app'. You'll find an entry in src/assets/css/global/global-styles.css. Replace with your own domain.
• Edit your social media in src/_data/social.js and src/_includes/icons. If you add new icons they must be prefixed with "social-". By default you have rss, mastodon, twitter, ko-fi, linkedin and github. Great resource: https://lucide.dev/
• Not required, but recommended: Delete github.js in src/_data/github.js and the blog posts, as these serve only as an example.
• Edit your preferences (colors, fluid text sizes etc.) in src/assets/css/design-tokens.
• Optional: set your (favicon) icons in src/assets/images/favicon.

Deploy directly to Netlify

Development

Install dependencies

npm install

Working locally

Starts watch tasks to compile when changes detected

npm start

Creating a production build

Minify JS, inline and minify CSS.

npm run build

Logbook

22-11-24

• updated required node version in package.json
• meta.js now controls most of the templates defaults
• added RSS feed, because of course!
• Made twitter and other meta data OPTIONAL. Added Mastodon.

22-11-04

• Adding blog posts for feature explanation

22-10-30

• WebC in own branch
• simplify main branch

22-10-03

• first commit. Updated

22-10-04

• All markdown syntax set.

Credits and Thank yous

Andy Bell

His CSS methodology makes sense to me. It also goes hand in hand with the Every Layout solutions he co-authors. An ardent opponent of the utility class framework Tailwind CSS. But has recently published an approach that incorporates Tailwind CSS into his methodology. This is built into my website and I'm working on tweaking it. I learned how to use Eleventy in 2020 with his (now free) course.

• https://cube.fyi/
• https://buildexcellentwebsit.es/
• https://learneleventyfromscratch.com/

Heydon Pickering

I strongly orientate myself on Heydon's approaches and love his books.

• https://every-layout.dev/
• https://inclusive-components.design/

Zach Leatherman

He is developing Eleventy.

• https://www.11ty.dev/
• https://www.zachleat.com/

Stephanie Eckles

She provides a lot of resources for Eleventy and modern CSS.

• https://smolcss.dev/
• https://moderncss.dev/

Aleksandr Hovhannisyan

I love order and structure. Aleksandr does this in an exemplary way, which is why I based the structure of eleventy.js on his personal site. The 301 redirect solution I'm using is from his blog.

• https://github.com/AleksandrHovhannisyan
• https://www.aleksandrhovhannisyan.com/blog/eleventy-netlify-redirects/

Oliver Schöndorfer

Oliver is a type expert. He writes the Pimp my Type Newsletter where I dscovered the font I'm using for this website.

• https://pimpmytype.com/outfit/
• https://pimpmytype.com/category/fontfriday/

Manuel Matuzović

Manuel is an accessibility expert. The menu I'm using is from one of his articles on web.dev.

• https://web.dev/website-navigation/
• https://www.matuzo.at/