Bare 1.0.1

This is a minor bug fix release since the 1.0 release which removes a log notice when a visitor sends a flood of requests, sends a request without a host name or another header-based exploit attempt. Bare still safely closes the request, however a PHP log notice was still being created. This release also adds a visitor language detection helper for future plugin use.

This release is in use on the author's personal blog on Tor, along with the firewall and templates plugins. Use the Tor Browser Bundle to visit.

Bare 1.0

This is the first production-ready release of Bare. Although previous beta releases have already been used in production, this version has changed default settings to work more securely and consistently over TLS, reverse proxies, and other hosting features. Several bug fixes and documentation improvements have also been made since the 0.9 release.

This release is in use on the author's personal blog on Tor, along with the firewall and templates plugins. Use the Tor Browser Bundle to visit.

Bare 0.9

This version adds a few minor fixes, code comments, and the ability to embed LBRY and Odysee media directly into blog posts using the [lbry] and [odysee] shortcodes. Usage instructions are in the readme file and follows a similar format to other hosted content.

This will be the last beta before the 1.0 release, although Bare is already being used in production.

This release is in use on the author's personal blog on Tor, along with the firewall and templates plugins. Use the Tor Browser Bundle to visit.

Bare 0.8

This version allows Bare to function more easily behind a load balancer or reverse proxy. Additional helpers for both emailing and static page loading have been added. Logging performance has been improved by deferring actions until shutdown() has been called. There are some bug fixes from the 0.7 release and prior versions.

To allow Bare or any plugins to use the email functionality, add allowed recipients to MAIL_WHITELIST in index.php or the "mail_whitelist" setting in config.json. The MAIL_FROM setting may also need to be modified if your server restricts which addresses or users are allowed send messages. Any emails sent using Bare must be to one or more of the recipient addresses in the whitelist.

This release is in use on the author's personal blog on Tor, along with the firewall and templates plugins. Use the Tor Browser Bundle to visit.

Bare 0.7

This version adds major documentation changes and some incremental improvements to the previous version. Most of the base settings are the same with better error logging and plugin hook functionality. Hooks can now add their own embedding tags into formatted pages, as well as introduce their own whitelist of HTML tags for future expansion.

This release is in use on the author's personal blog on Tor, along with the firewall plugin. Use the Tor Browser Bundle to visit.

Bare 0.6

This version adds far more template and style customization options and more plugin hooks. More permanent settings can now be stored in config.json. These changes make upgrading Bare much easier than before. The index.php file should only require very minimal changes between upgrades/updates.

The majority of settings can now be safely moved to config.json in the cache folder with very few remaining in index.php. The settings that still require editing if they are different from the defaults, in index.php are:

• PATH : If the index.php file is located outside your web root and away from the posts directory, this will need to be changed
• POSTS : The location of your posts folder, if it is named differently, and is relative to PATH
• CACHE : A writable folder where the cache of all posts, any error logs, and config.json are located
• FILE_PATH : If you upload your static files, such as images, video, CSS, text etc... to a different location than POSTS, this should be edited
• CONFIG : The name of the config file I.E. config.json
• ERROR : The name of the error log file used by Bare to record server and application issues (should be checked after installing a new plugin)
• ERROR_VISIT : Log file name for storing visitor errors such as 404 File Not Found
• ERROR_ROOT : A folder containing plain HTML files sent as custom error pages (Bare comes with an example 404.html page)
• PLUGINS : The directory where plugins are uploaded (the convention is plugin-name/plugin-name.php when installing plugins to this folder)
• PLUGIN_DATA : A storage location where plugins may create files of their own (defaults to the CACHE folder above)
• and SITE_WHITE : This is an important setting which "enables" your Bare blog domain, and it can be as simple as adding "example.com" : []

It is strongly recommended that SUPPORTED_PHP, the versions that currently do or "may" work with Bare, not be modified even though it is also possible to do in config.json. Bare is not tested in PHP versions older than 7.3 and full 8.0 testing is coming soon.

Plugins can now completely modify the page presentation by inserting their own templates and template fragments. This was possible to do before with include files, but it required modifying index.php and those changes had to be repeated between updates. There is also a very minimal templates plugin which makes it even easier. Custom CSS classes can be added to rendering templates, even those loaded by plugins, in config.json.

CSS styling systems such as Tachyons, which makes extensive use of custom class names, can be used without modifying index.php. Likewise, Classless or no-class CSS frameworks can be applied for even simpler styling.

Deleting or renaming the dynamically created cache database of all posts, cache.db, in the cache folder is not necessary before installing this release, but it is recommended if using any custom templates or the old appearance will show up until the cache automatically expires. This version also adds automatic cache expiration when config.json is modified. This is a security measure to prevent older settings, such as session expiration and cache lifetime, from still being valid between page refreshes.

This release is in use on the author's personal blog on Tor, along with the firewall plugin. Use the Tor Browser Bundle to visit.

Bare 0.5

This version enables plugins to load their own SQL files if they're located in the CACHE folder. Plugins can also create their own simple forms for contact pages, editors etc... More options can now be moved to config.json, such as timezone and frame sources for embedding YouTube, Vimeo, Archive.org video and so on, which enables greater customization between upgrades without having to edit the settings in index.php too much.

The cache and session database access has been streamlined for better error handling and logging. There is now an example 404 page which can be adapted to serve other error pages. Some redundant code has been removed since Version 0.4.

This release is in use on the author's personal blog on Tor, along with the firewall plugin. Use the Tor Browser Bundle to visit.

Bare 0.4

This version adds more customization options to an optional config.json. Main, about page, and footer links are now configurable without editing index.php (JSON escaped). In addition, meta tags and stylesheets can also be added. Setting any of these options in config.json will completely replace the default set included in the release.

This release is in use on the author's personal blog on Tor, along with the firewall plugin. Use the Tor Browser Bundle to visit.

Bare 0.3

This version adds additional hosting parameters for each blog served with Bare. There is now an is_active and is_maintenance mode for each blog, even those on the same domain, which will let plugins handle content differently.

This release is in use on the author's personal blog on Tor, along with the firewall plugin. Use the Tor Browser Bundle to visit.

Bare 0.2

Bare 0.2

This release adds multi-site capability to Bare.

Serve different posts depending on different domains accessed by the visitor. Add your new domain to the SERVER_WHITELIST comma-separated list in index.php, create a folder in the POSTS directory with the domain name you wish to serve separate content from, and start publishing new blog posts there in the same year/month/date/slug.md format as before. Static home.md and about/main.md pages are all now automatically multi-site if they too are in the domain folder.

Note: Ordinary posts, pages, and files uploaded without the aid of plugins are compatible with this release. Files uploaded/created by plugins are now multi-site by default so those are not backwards compatible. If you are already using a plugin which lets you upload/edit files, remember to move them to a new domain subfolder in the PLUGIN_DATA location.

This release is in use on the author's personal blog on Tor, along with the firewall plugin. Use the Tor Browser Bundle to visit.