Bar Total is an all encompassing concept by my friend group which I brought into the www this summer in the form of a webpaper (read: blog). Located at https://bartotal.se, or my favourite https://bartotal.digital, the Swedish Gothenburg based journal enables me and my friends (some of which are actual journalists in training) to dabble in the written arts and engage in the cultural sphere.
I learned a lot from building the site and I think the look came out clean and focused. Since itās been such a fun project Iāve put a lot of time not only in the website but also doing art and āāmarketingāā lol. Writing about whatever in Swedish under pseudonyms and in collaboration has also been freeing!
The development went very much in parallel with that of Ung i VƤrlden, with Bar Total acting as a lower stakes, more minimalistic, lawless testing ground for much the same tech used for Ung i VƤrlden.
Tech
The site is built using Astro, based on the Astro Cactus theme by Chris Williams, and deploys with Netlify. My fellow editors can publish through the Decap Content Management System (formerly Netlify CMS) which integrates easily with Netlify Identity for editor access. Iāve long wanted to make sites for others but couldnāt find a good way combining both total freedom to customise and an easy way for the client to update content, until I found this CMS!
I am proud to have improved on the comment system of this site by adding easy moderation of new comments, with no need to git push from my computer. The sites static contents are updated using Netlify functions via a password protected form accessed and populated through a link in the new-comment-notification email. Thanks to GreenAshās amazing article detailing this kid of setup! Netlify really does all the heavy lifting but the system works like a charm and all comments gets happily stored in plain json in the repo and thus will live forever.
Next up is figuring out how to best send emails to the newsletter subscribers at every new post. Since weāre very small I am still storing the mailing-list manually and have been sending plain text emails to notify of new posts. Even though the subscriber numbers most likely will stay very manageable I want to send out good looking html-emails soon.
Final notes
This project has been and continues to be great fun! Itās great to work creatively with others and so nice to have our own little platform! We are still finding our footing regarding what exactly to write about and really what Bar Total even āisā ā a process I am throughly enjoying. As uni is starting I am however grateful the site is working without hassle. Stickers are coming soon!
Links šø
We also have a Twitter/X and an Instagram which you can find on the site.