shi

SHell Imageboard (second edition)

actually pretty decent

features

• its all POSIX sh
  • seriously
• posting
• replies
• images
• timestamps
• more

how to set up

• clone this repo
• cd to this repo
• . ./console.sh to start the shi console
  • start_listener to start listening for posts
• you might want to do tail -f log.txt in another terminal to see whats going on

how backends work

• shi has a builtin framework for swappable backends both for post receiving and storage, currently there is:
  • tar backend
    • like the old version of shi
    • receives tar files through nc and generates posts
    • bad
    • don't use it
  • http backend
    • listens for an http POST request with form data
    • allows user-friendly html post form
    • cool
    • good
  • file db backend
    • stores posts as a series of text files in folders
    • unchanged from old shi
    • ok
• how backends work
  • listening
    • a backend is a shell script with a listen function
    • this function is expected to continuously output post data it receives
    • as long as the backend has a listen function that continuously outputs data to stdout in the proper format, shi doesn't care where it comes from.
  • db
    • a db backend is simply a shell script providing the following functions:
      • path_to_post <post id>
      • create post <board> <parent> <user> <title> <content> <image_name> <image_content> <post_id> <post_type>
      • get_post_data <post_data_path> <item>
      • note that since these functions are both in the same file, post_data_path can be in any format you desire
      • again, shi doesn't care how this is done, only that it follows this format

anatomy of a post

• user
  • name of user who posted the post
• title
  • title of post
  • this will be ignored for replies
• content
  • the text content of a post
• thumb_path
  • optional, filesystem path to the thumbnail of the post's image
• image_path
  • optional, filesystem path to the image
• html_path
  • path to where the html of the post is stored
• post_id
  • unique numerical id of the post
• post_type
  • type of post, specifies what template to use
  • currently there is 'oppost' and 'reply' supported
• replies
  • newline separated list of post_id's for all the replies to the op post
  • a trailing /. is added to prevent find from seeing post_data_path itself

defining new post templates

• edit your template of choice in the 'templates' folder,
• {{{ TRIPLE BRACES }}} will be replaced with their respective variables

style notes

• if it can be done in a single line, you can set a variable to it, otherwise declare the variable as empty and then set it to your operation
• follow shellcheck

files n folders

• boards
  • where all the html for the boards is stored
• console.sh
  • source this to allow you to control shi
• globals.sh
  • global variables (really just settings)
• inbox
  • where posts data is cached before being processed
• latest
  • the id of the latest post
  • very important!!
• LICENSE
  • free software, free society
• log.txt
  • log
• problems.txt
  • current issues with shi
• README.md
  • this file
• reset.sh
  • debug script that nukes all boards and completely resets shi
  • don't use this unless you've really screwed up
• shi.sh
  • memories
• templates
  • templates
• util.sh
  • utility functions employed by console.sh

this whole rewrite started because of a feature request by desvox. Unfortunately, due to the complexity of responding to http requests with sh, this feature was not added.

Sorry desvox :(