KolofonFeatures
What Kolofon can do — feature by feature, each under its own number. Not a list of slogans from a leaflet, but a description of what a given thing does, what it does not do, and why it was built that way. A caveat: the engine is under construction and changes faster than this series can describe it. A number describes the state on the day it was written, not a promise for the future — some of these features will cease to exist, and others are not yet even planned.
Kolofon · 14 August 2026 · provisional
01 · Content in the repository
Entries sit as files in the author's repository. There is no editorial panel, because there is nothing to administer — there is a directory of texts.
Kolofon · 14 August 2026 · provisional
02 · Series and stream
Every entry belongs to a series and holds its own place in that series' index. The stream gathers all series into one list, newest first.
Kolofon · 14 August 2026 · provisional
03 · Scheduled publishing
An entry dated in the future sits in the repository and appears only at its hour. No external scheduler, no second deployment.
Kolofon · 14 August 2026 · provisional
04 · A feed carrying the whole text
The feed serves the full text of an entry and its image in three notations at once — so that readers and distribution automations have something to build a preview from.
Kolofon · 14 August 2026 · provisional
05 · Sitemap and search description
The sitemap assembles itself from published entries, and every page carries its own title, description and canonical address.
Kolofon · 14 August 2026 · provisional
06 · Preview cards
Every entry has a preview image — a photographic one gets a light variant of its own frame, a text one gets a card built from its strongest sentence.
Kolofon · 14 August 2026 · provisional
07 · App and offline reading
The site can be installed like an app, and the latest entries are fetched in advance — reading works on the underground and on a plane.
Kolofon · 14 August 2026 · provisional
08 · Notifications of a new entry
A reader can turn on notifications of new entries with a single click, without giving an email address. Delivery follows publication.
Kolofon · 14 August 2026 · provisional
09 · Reader ratings
Readers rate entries in stars. Before the first votes arrive, an entry shows the author's provisional rating, labelled as provisional.
Kolofon · 14 August 2026 · provisional
10 · View counter
Entries have a view counter kept on the site's own side, with no third-party tracking scripts and nothing passed outwards.
Kolofon · 14 August 2026 · provisional
11 · Comments
Entries can be commented on, and the instance picks the rule: anyone, signed-in readers only, or nobody. Comments sit in the site's database.
Kolofon · 14 August 2026 · provisional
12 · Reader accounts
A reader may create an account and return under their own name. The session is kept in the database only as a digest, never as a token.
Kolofon · 14 August 2026 · provisional
13 · Event log
The site keeps its own event log: what was opened, where a reader came from, from which country and which browser. The network address is anonymised after three months.
Kolofon · 14 August 2026 · provisional
14 · Language versions
A family of language instances: each language has its own deployment and its own database, and a shared entry key leads from a text to its counterpart.
Kolofon · 14 August 2026 · provisional
15 · A book for print
The entries of one series, or of the whole stream, are set into a print-ready PDF book with a cover, a table of contents and bookmarks.
Kolofon · 14 August 2026 · provisional
16 · Hiding a series
A series can be hidden without removal: entirely, or only from the navigation, with its entries still present in the stream. Its own address works in both variants.
Kolofon · 14 August 2026 · provisional
17 · Instance configuration
One configuration file describes the whole site: name, address, language, navigation, colours, policies. The engine knows none of those values in advance.
Kolofon · 14 August 2026 · provisional
18 · Release marker
The site carries a release marker by which a long-open tab recognises that it is running an old version, and refreshes itself.
Kolofon · 14 August 2026 · provisional
19 · Interface strings
Every string of the engine's own — buttons, labels, messages — can be overridden by the instance, in its language and its tone.
Kolofon · 14 August 2026 · provisional
20 · Authors and typesetting
A site may have several authors, each with a pen name, a signature under photographs and their own way of setting the opening initial.
Kolofon · 16 August 2026 · provisional
21 · Image variants
The same entry goes out into the world in several shapes. You do not crop a frame to somebody else’s format — you add a variant.
Kolofon · 17 August 2026 · provisional
22 · A poll under the entry
Three closed questions under the text. The result only after you answer, one pool of votes across language versions, and nothing stored that could identify anyone.