Added new blog post: the past present and future

docs/blog/2021/the-past-present-and-future.md

@@ -0,0 +1,278 @@
+---
+template: overrides/main.html
+description: >
+  2021 was an amazing year for this project as we shipped many new awesome
+  features and made this project sustainable
+search:
+  exclude: true
+---
+
+# The past, present and future
+
+__2021 was an amazing year for this project as we shipped many new awesome
+features, saw significant user growth and leveraged GitHub Sponsors to make the
+project sustainable.__
+
+<aside class="mdx-author" markdown>
+![@squidfunk][@squidfunk avatar]
+
+<span>__Martin Donath__ · @squidfunk</span>
+<span>
+:octicons-calendar-24: December 27, 2021 ·
+:octicons-clock-24: 10 min read
+</span>
+</aside>
+
+  [@squidfunk avatar]: https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/932156
+
+---
+
+Today, together, [MkDocs] and Material for MkDocs are among the most popular
+options when it comes to choosing a static site generator and theme for your
+technical documentation project. Material for MkDocs ensures that your
+content is always perfectly presented to your audience, regardless of screen
+resolution or device capabilities. It has evolved to a framework for technical
+writing, offering many features, some of which are yet to be found in other
+static site generators. However, we're far from the end, as 2022 is going to
+bring some interesting new capabilities.
+
+_This article showcases all features that were added in 2021 and gives an
+outlook on what's going to drop in 2022. Additionally, it gives some context
+on the history of the project._
+
+  [MkDocs]: https://www.mkdocs.org
+
+## A little history
+
+In 2015, albeit 10 years in the industry, I was still quite new in Open Source.
+I wanted to release my latest Open Source project [protobluff], a zero-copy
+Protocol Buffers implementation for C, which I've created as part of my former
+startup. As the project has a significant degree of complexity, I quickly
+realized that I was in need of good user documentation.
+
+After evaluating static site generators in general and Hugo, Sphinx and MkDocs
+in particular, I quickly decided that MkDocs seemed a good choice, as it was
+specifically aimed at technical project documentation and easy to use.
+Unfortunately, all of the available themes looked dated and given that I'm a
+very visual person, I just couldn't convince myself to call it a day.
+
+I _had_ to build a theme.
+
+Months later, in February 2016, I released [the first version] of Material for
+MkDocs (and with it, [protobluff], the project I wanted to release in the first
+place), and it looked like this:
+
+![Material for MkDocs 0.1.0][Material for MkDocs 0.1.0]
+
+It was already fully responsive and overall, well, quite okayish, but barely
+customizable, as only the logo could be changed. Beyond that, it had no options:
+No color or navigation options, no instant loading, etc. The search was very
+rudimentary and only supported section titles:
+
+![Material for MkDocs 0.1.0 Search][Material for MkDocs 0.1.0 Search]
+
+It's important to known that at this point in time I've built Material for
+MkDocs for [protobluff], the project I was really caring about. Almost 6 years
+later, nobody knows protobluff, but this little side project has taken off. If
+back in those days, you would've told me that big organizations like AWS,
+Microsoft and CERN, as well as extremely popular Open Source projects like
+FastAPI and Kubernetes will be using this project in the future – I would've
+declared you insane.
+
+I still find the success of this project quite surprising, as I thought that
+themes exist in abundance and are very much a solved problem. There's no glory
+in themes, no stars to earn (remember that I was new in Open Source, so this was
+the metric I was optimizing for), as there are thousands and thousands of
+options. However, as the years progressed, I learned that _execution matters_:
+although Material for MkDocs solves a problem for which thousands of solutions
+exist, it excels in a specific niche, and that niche is to be known as
+_technical project documentation_.
+
+Today, this project is not only popular, but funded by almost 300 individuals
+and organizations, resulting in a yearly budget of more than $50,000. This
+allows me to set aside enough time for the development of new features,
+bug fixing, stability improvement, issue triage and general support and still
+feels like a dream to me, as there are many failed stories of Open Source
+funding and people telling you: _don't do Open Source, you'll be working for
+free._
+
+Making Open Source sustainable is, after all, possible in 2021.
+
+  [the first version]: https://github.com/squidfunk/mkdocs-material/releases/tag/0.1.0
+  [Material for MkDocs 0.1.0]: the-past-present-and-future/mkdocs-material-0.1.0.png
+  [Material for MkDocs 0.1.0 Search]: the-past-present-and-future/mkdocs-material-0.1.0-search.png
+  [protobluff]: https://github.com/squidfunk/protobluff
+
+## 2021 in numbers
+
+2021 was a very interesting year, as the project has seen significant growth.
+
+__166k people__ visited the official documentation in 2021, totalling in __1,6m
+page views__ which is an increase of 83% when compared to 2020. The average
+visitor spends __1,5min__ on the site. While mobile phones make up 12% of
+visits, tablets only account for 0.6%. Visitors come from as many as __213
+countries__, which covers almost the whole world.
+
+### Features
+
+It's absolutely mind blowing that __38 new features__ were added to Material
+for MkDocs throughout 2021 – __that's a new feature every 9,6 days__ –
+which was only possible because of the constantly improving funding situation.
+Following is a list of all features shipped in alphabetical order, some of which
+are still exclusively available to sponsors as part of [Insiders]:
+
+<div class="mdx-columns" markdown>
+
+- [Admonition inline blocks]
+- [Advanced search highlighting]
+- [Anchor tracking]
+- [Back-to-top button]
+- [Boosting pages in search]
+- [Brand new search plugin]
+- [Code annotations]
+- [Code annotations: anchor links]
+- [Code annotations: strip comments]
+- [Code block titles]
+- [Code block line anchors]
+- [Color palette toggle]
+- [Content tabs: improved support]
+- [Content tabs: auto-linking]
+- Content tabs: animated indicator
+- [Cookie consent]
+- [Custom admonition icons]
+- [Dark mode support for images]
+- [Dismissable announcement bar]
+- [Excluding content from search]
+- Latest release tag
+- [Mermaid.js integration]
+- [Navigation icons]
+- [Stay on page when switching versions]
+- [Tags with search integration]
+- [Remove generator notice]
+- [Rich search previews]
+- [Search suggestions]
+- [Search highlighting]
+- [Search sharing]
+- [Section index pages]
+- [Site language selection]
+- [Social cards]
+- [Sticky navigation tabs]
+- [Tokenizer with lookahead]
+- [Versioning]
+- [Version warning]
+- [Was this page helpful?]
+
+</div>
+
+Additionally, a lot of bugs were fixed in the __1,000 commits__ that were pushed
+to the repository this year. The [changelog] includes a list of all fixes.
+Furthermore, a large amount of time was invested into refactoring the code base
+to keep it in good shape. While the `mkdocs-material` package was released
+__55__ times, `mkdocs-material-insiders` was shipped __72__ times.
+
+  [Insiders]: ../../insiders/index.md
+  [Admonition inline blocks]: ../../reference/admonitions.md#inline-blocks
+  [Advanced search highlighting]: search-better-faster-smaller.md#accurate-highlighting
+  [Anchor tracking]: ../../setup/setting-up-navigation.md#anchor-tracking
+  [Back-to-top button]: ../../setup/setting-up-navigation.md#back-to-top-button
+  [Boosting pages in search]: ../../setup/setting-up-site-search.md#search-boosting
+  [Brand new search plugin]: search-better-faster-smaller.md
+  [Code annotations]: ../../reference/code-blocks.md#adding-annotations
+  [Code annotations: anchor links]: ../../reference/code-blocks.md#anchor-links
+  [Code annotations: strip comments]: ../../reference/code-blocks.md#stripping-comments
+  [Code block titles]: ../../reference/code-blocks.md#adding-a-title
+  [Code block line anchors]: ../../setup/extensions/python-markdown-extensions.md#anchor-linenums
+  [Color palette toggle]: ../../setup/changing-the-colors.md#color-palette-toggle
+  [Content tabs: improved support]: ../../reference/content-tabs.md
+  [Content tabs: auto-linking]: ../../reference/content-tabs.md#linked-content-tabs
+  [Cookie consent]: ../../setup/setting-up-site-analytics.md#cookie-consent
+  [Custom admonition icons]: ../../reference/admonitions.md#admonition-icons
+  [Dark mode support for images]: ../../reference/images.md#light-and-dark-mode
+  [Dismissable announcement bar]: ../../setup/setting-up-the-header.md#mark-as-read
+  [Excluding content from search]: ../../setup/setting-up-site-search.md#search-exclusion
+  [Mermaid.js integration]: ../../reference/diagrams.md
+  [Navigation icons]: ../../reference/index.md#setting-the-page-icon
+  [Remove generator notice]: ../../setup/setting-up-the-footer.md#generator-notice
+  [Rich search previews]: search-better-faster-smaller.md#rich-search-previews
+  [Search suggestions]: ../../setup/setting-up-site-search.md#search-suggestions
+  [Search highlighting]: ../../setup/setting-up-site-search.md#search-highlighting
+  [Search sharing]: ../../setup/setting-up-site-search.md#search-sharing
+  [Section index pages]: ../../setup/setting-up-navigation.md#section-index-pages
+  [Site language selection]: ../../setup/changing-the-language.md#site-language-selector
+  [Social cards]: ../../setup/setting-up-social-cards.md
+  [Stay on page when switching versions]: ../../setup/setting-up-versioning.md#stay-on-page
+  [Sticky navigation tabs]: ../../setup/setting-up-navigation.md#sticky-navigation-tabs
+  [Tags with search integration]: ../../setup/setting-up-tags.md
+  [Tokenizer with lookahead]: search-better-faster-smaller.md#tokenizer-lookahead
+  [Versioning]: ../../setup/setting-up-versioning.md#versioning
+  [Version warning]: ../../setup/setting-up-versioning.md#version-warning
+  [Was this page helpful?]: ../../setup/setting-up-site-analytics.md#was-this-page-helpful
+  [changelog]: ../../changelog/index.md
+
+### Funding
+
+The funding level in 2021 increased from $1,050 in the beginning of January to
+more than $4,300 (Dec 27, 2021), totaling in a yearly budget of more than
+$50,000. Compared to last year, __funding has increased by 617%__ – which is
+absolutely unbelievable:
+
+![Funding]
+
+  [Funding]: the-past-present-and-future/funding.png
+
+I'm solely providing these numbers to fulfill the transparency pledge I'm giving
+to my [awesome sponsors], and to show that it's possible to make existing Open
+Source projects sustainable by following a well-designed release strategy.
+
+You can learn about the strategy in the [Insiders] guide.
+
+  [awesome sponsors]: ../../insiders/index.md#how-to-become-a-sponsor
+
+## 2022
+
+Standing at the verge of the next year, it's safe to say that the project will
+continue to prosper and evolve, yielding many awesome features that will make
+technical writing more comfortable and flexible. Here's an excerpt of the
+features that will be see the light of day in 2022:
+
+- __Instant previews__: [instant previews] will render a specific page section
+  inside a tooltip when hovering an internal link, which will allow to implement
+  things like glossaries. Further support for improving glossary functionality
+  will also be investigated.
+
+- __Text annotations__: as a logical progression of [code annotations] which
+  were added in 2021, authors will be able to add annotations to plain text,
+  yielding excellent opportunies for side content. Of course, text annotations
+  will be as easy to use as code annotations.
+
+- __Navigation pruning__: to optimize large documentation projects, Material
+  for MkDocs will introduce a new feature flag called `navigation.prune` that
+  will lead to significantly smaller HTML files for documentation projects with
+  huge navigation hierarchies.
+
+- __Navigation status badge__: as an addition to the recently added
+  [navigation icon][Navigation icons] support, a status will be attributable to
+  each page, allowing to mark a page in the navigation tree with an icon as
+  :material-alert-decagram: __new__ or :material-trash-can: __deprecated__.
+  Custom status types will also be supported.
+
+- __Hover cards__: as a further component in the toolkit of technical writing,
+  [hover cards] will allow to arrange content in grids, which is especially
+  useful for overview pages. They will allow to arrange arbitrary content in
+  grids, including code blocks, admonitions, etc.
+
+- __Blog support__: blogging support is still [under investigation] and expected
+  to be one of the major additions in 2022. Blogging will perfectly integrate
+  with writing documentation, allowing to use all components that are available
+  in Material for MkDocs.
+
+This list is incomplete. Additionally, many new smaller features will be added
+next year, just as in 2021. You can follow [@squidfunk on Twitter] to stay
+updated.
+
+__Happy new year!__ :tada:
+
+  [Instant previews]: https://twitter.com/squidfunk/status/1466794654213492743
+  [hover cards]: https://github.com/squidfunk/mkdocs-material/issues/3018
+  [under investigation]: https://github.com/squidfunk/mkdocs-material/issues/3353
+  [@squidfunk on Twitter]: https://twitter.com/squidfunk

docs/blog/index.md

@@ -12,6 +12,39 @@ search:
 
 # Blog
 
+## [The past, present and future]
+
+__2021 was an amazing year for this project as we shipped many new awesome
+features, saw significant user growth and leveraged GitHub Sponsors to make the
+project sustainable.__
+
+<aside class="mdx-author" markdown>
+![@squidfunk][@squidfunk avatar]
+
+<span>__Martin Donath__ · @squidfunk</span>
+<span>
+:octicons-calendar-24: December 27, 2021 ·
+:octicons-clock-24: 10 min read
+</span>
+</aside>
+
+  [@squidfunk avatar]: https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/932156
+
+---
+
+Today, together, MkDocs and Material for MkDocs are among the most popular
+options when it comes to choosing a static site generator and theme for your
+technical documentation project. Material for MkDocs ensures that your
+content is always perfectly presented to your audience, regardless of screen
+resolution or device capabilities. It has evolved to a framework for technical
+writing, offering many features, some of which are yet to be found in other
+static site generators. However, we're far from the end, as 2022 is going to
+bring some interesting new capabilities.
+
+  [:octicons-arrow-right-24: Continue reading][The past, present and future]
+
+  [The past, present and future]: 2021/the-past-present-and-future.md
+
 ## [Excluding content from search]
 
 __The latest Insiders release brings three new simple ways to exclude dedicated
@@ -29,8 +62,6 @@ control.__
 </span>
 </aside>
 
-  [@squidfunk avatar]: https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/932156
-
 ---
 
 Two weeks ago, Material for MkDocs Insiders shipped a brand new search plugin,

mkdocs.yml

@@ -212,5 +212,6 @@ nav:
   - Blog:
     - blog/index.md
     - 2021:
+      - blog/2021/the-past-present-and-future.md
       - blog/2021/excluding-content-from-search.md
       - blog/2021/search-better-faster-smaller.md