My Free Open-source Projects
Blog Themes, Tools, and Project Sites
In addition to blog themes, I’ve developed a variety of web applications, developer tools, and community websites. These projects showcase my full-stack development skills, from Flask and Django backends to React frontends.
Many of these projects serve real communities and users, while others are developer tools designed to make workflows more efficient.
Bearminder: Bear → Beeminder Menubar
A macOS menubar application that tracks daily word counts from the Bear app and posts them to Beeminder goals. It runs on-demand or hourly, securely stores tokens in Keychain, and focuses on privacy.
Tech: Swift, macOS AppKit, Beeminder API, Bear App API, Keychain, XcodeGen
11ty Indie Web Blog Starter
A modern, feature-complete blog template built with Eleventy and Tailwind CSS. It is designed for writers who want to own their content and participate in the IndieWeb, offering features like simple setup, IndieWeb readiness (Microformats, webmentions, RSS), modern design, and privacy focus.
Tech: Eleventy (11ty), Tailwind CSS, Nunjucks, JavaScript, Node.js, HTML, CSS
brennan.day
Brennan Kenneth Brown's personal IndieWeb blog built with Eleventy. Features essays, poetry, and musings on writing, technology, and the human experience with full IndieWeb integration including Microformats2, webmentions, and RSS feeds.
Tech: Eleventy (11ty), Nunjucks, Markdown, CSS, HTML, Microformats2, Webmentions
Calgary Groups
A centralized, searchable directory designed to help Calgarians discover and connect with local organizations. Features advanced search & filtering, responsive design, dark mode, and PWA capabilities.
Tech: Eleventy (11ty), Tailwind CSS, Alpine.js, JavaScript, Markdown, Netlify, PWA
Campfire: Story‑Focused Hugo Theme
A warm, story-focused Hugo theme designed for blogs, journals, and writing-first sites. It features readable typography, a wider content column, a pragmatic sidebar, dark/light themes with persistence, and a mobile-friendly header.
Tech: Hugo, HTML, CSS
Classic Spirits: Sidebar Jekyll Theme
A classic sidebar Jekyll theme for old-school blogging, built with the Bulma framework. It is a fork of Soot Spirits by Abhishek Nagekar, with significant improvements in CSS for better performance, a two-column responsive layout, and integration with Jekyll plugins for RSS, sitemap, accessibility, and SEO.
Tech: Jekyll, Bulma CSS, HTML, CSS, Ruby, JavaScript
Romance & Community: MRU English Honours Conference
The official repository for the Mount Royal University English Honours Conference of 2025 (website for the 2024 conference). This website serves as the digital home for the conference, themed around Romance & Community, exploring the intersection of romance and community in literature, relationships, and societal change. It features a responsive design, dynamic schedule display, speaker profiles, and is SEO optimized.
Tech: Jekyll, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Ruby, Shell
craft.wang: Indie Fibre Arts Community
An independent, open-source, self-hosted fibre arts community for pattern hoarders, WIP collectors, and people who frog the same sweater multiple times.
Tech: HTML, CSS, JavaScript
CSET: Society for Equity in Technology
The official website for Calgary's Society for Equity in Technology (CSET). CSET is a volunteer-administered collective offering low-cost technology classes and events to the Calgary community, focusing on creating an inclusive space for marginalized groups and active allies. The website provides information about their mission, events, and resources.
Tech: Jekyll, HTML, CSS, Ruby, JavaScript, Bootstrap, Font Awesome, Tockify, Typeform, OpenDyslexic
Brennan Brown: CV / Resume
A web-based CV and resume for Brennan Kenneth Brown, a Queer Métis author, web developer, and community builder based in Calgary, Alberta.
Tech: Eleventy, HTML, CSS, JavaScript
Django Project: Full‑Stack Web App
A full-stack Django project utilizing Bootstrap 4 and vanilla JavaScript for the front-end, a PostgreSQL database, and GraphQL for API functionality. It also uses Selenium for test-driven development and is intended to be deployed on a DigitalOcean Droplet.
Tech: Django, Python, PostgreSQL, GraphQL, Selenium, Bootstrap 4, JavaScript, CSS
enjoyment-work: Research‑Focused Digital Garden
An extensive Jekyll theme designed to have similar functionality to Roam Research. It's an academic/research-focused theme that provides extensive features for note-taking and personal growth, based on the Digital Garden philosophy. It aims to integrate with Obsidian for turning notes into an online blog.
Tech: Jekyll, HTML, CSS, Bootstrap 4, SCSS, Obsidian, Ruby, Simply Jekyll Search
EvolveU: Bootcamp Portfolio
A comprehensive full-stack developer bootcamp portfolio featuring 7 modules of progressive learning in modern web development. Completed intensive program covering JavaScript, React, Python, Flask, MongoDB, and agile methodologies through hands-on projects and collaborative development.
Tech: JavaScript (ES6+), React 18, HTML5, CSS3, Bootstrap 5, Material-UI, Python 3.12, Flask 3, MongoDB, Mongoose, Jest, Pytest, Git, npm, pipenv, RESTful APIs
Folk Zone: IndieWeb Commons
A collection of free, open-source, self-hosted federated internet services, including Mastodon, Forgejo, WriteFreely, Pixelfed, Lemmy, and more, run on consumer hardware.
Tech: Eleventy, HTML, CSS, Node.js, Shell
Foothills: Accessible Tumblr Theme
A warm, accessible Tumblr theme designed for writers and community builders.
Tech: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Tumblr Theme System, Netlify
hyperpop: Y2K‑Inspired 11ty Blog Theme
A Y2K-inspired static blog theme built with Eleventy. Features authentic late 90s/early 2000s web aesthetics with modern performance and accessibility. Includes client-side search, stats counter, offline support, SEO, and responsive design.
Tech: Eleventy (11ty), HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Service Workers, JSON index search, Netlify, Accessibility (WCAG AA)
Indiepaper
A minimalist brutalist blog theme for Hugo that embraces smolweb principles. Features microformats2 support, no external dependencies, and a greyscale aesthetic. Built for writers who value speed, accessibility, and ownership.
Tech: Hugo, HTML5, CSS3, Microformats2, Modern Font Stacks
jekyll-audit: Audit Jekyll Sites via CLI
An npm package and CLI tool designed to audit Jekyll sites for performance, accessibility, SEO, broken links, and HTML validation. It builds and serves the Jekyll site locally, then runs various audits using tools like Lighthouse, Pa11y, Linkinator, and html-validator, providing consolidated reports.
Tech: TypeScript, JavaScript, Node.js, npm, Jekyll, Lighthouse, Pa11y, Linkinator, html-validator
journalbar: Quantified Self Blog
A personal blog for self-quantification and personal improvement, powered by Jekyll. This project serves as a meta-accountability experiment where Brennan Brown provides weekly updates on his goals tracked on Beeminder, aiming to foster consistent reporting and habit adherence.
Tech: Jekyll, HTML, CSS, Ruby, Shell
journalfor.me: Private, Encrypted Markdown Journal
An early access, minimalist, secure, Markdown-based journal application with cross-device sync and offline capabilities. It is built as a Progressive Web App (PWA) with zero-knowledge encryption, ensuring privacy by storing only encrypted blobs on the server. It features client-side AES-256 encryption, secure authentication, and a hybrid architecture combining local IndexedDB with encrypted cloud sync.
Tech: TypeScript, Vite, Tailwind CSS, Netlify Functions, Neon PostgreSQL, JWT, bcrypt, IndexedDB, Service Workers
Markdown to DOCX
A website that converts Markdown files to Microsoft Word format while preserving formatting and structure. It offers a web version (recommended) that requires no installation and processes files locally, as well as technical versions for local execution with features like batch conversion and folder structure preservation.
Tech: Python, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Pandoc, pypandoc
Marketing: Case Study Portfolio on Hugo
A marketing portfolio showcasing in-depth marketing strategies, experiences, and case studies. It is created with Hugo and hosted on Netlify, featuring a design inspired by the Portio template by StaticMania.
Tech: Hugo, HTML, CSS, SCSS, Netlify, Forestry CMS
Moneytree: Offline Personal Finance PWA
A privacy-first, offline-capable personal finance Progressive Web App (PWA). It supports transactions with accounts and transfers, monthly budgeting, and robust offline caching via a service worker. Data is stored locally in IndexedDB, ensuring privacy with no external APIs.
Tech: Eleventy (11ty), Tailwind CSS, IndexedDB, JavaScript, Nunjucks, Vitest, Service Workers
Newsprint
A newspaper-inspired blog theme for Eleventy that combines traditional publication aesthetics with modern web standards. Features multi-column layouts, masthead design, drop caps, and comprehensive RSS feeds.
Tech: Eleventy (11ty), Tailwind CSS, HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, RSS
Notes: Public Programming Notes
A public domain repository of notes on various skills, including programming and software development. It covers topics like programming fundamentals, algorithms, design patterns, Python, web development (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Node.js, Express, React.js, Flask, Django), and tools like Git and GitHub.
Tech: SCSS, Markdown, Jekyll
Purelog: Sidebar Jekyll Theme for Writers
A responsive sidebar Jekyll theme, created with the Pure.css framework. It's designed for writers and bloggers and aims to be lightweight while offering features like separate sections for blogging, note-taking, and daily journal entries.
Tech: Jekyll, HTML, Pure.css, Ruby, RubyGems, Simply Jekyll Search
Retroweird: Maximalist 11ty Blog Theme
A maximalist, customizable blog theme for Eleventy inspired by GeoCities, MySpace, and the creative chaos of 1990s-2000s personal homepages. Features 6 pre-built themes, modular widget system, guestbook, blogroll, badge generator, and webring support while maintaining accessibility and mobile responsiveness.
Tech: Eleventy, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Node.js, npm, Netlify, Git
Self-Teach Academy: Landing Page
This repository contains the static landing page for Self-Teach Academy, a centralized dashboard designed to track learning progress across multiple platforms. The project is evolving into a full-stack Next.js application, with the current static page serving as a demo. It aims to empower self-taught students and lifelong learners by automatically ingesting activity from various learning platforms.
Tech: SCSS, CSS, HTML, JavaScript, TypeScript, Next.js, Prisma, Supabase
thinkingwhy.com: Astro 5 Blog for Literary Tech Journalism
Astro 5.x JAMStack blog. Literary journalism with technical excellence. Human-first writing, rigorous attribution, and contrarian insights across 14 profitable niches. Features type-safe content collections, semantic SEO, JSON-LD structured data, and Core Web Vitals optimization (LCP <2.5s).
Tech: Astro 5, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, Content Collections, JSON-LD, Vercel, GA4 Ready, AdSense
Water Zero: Global Water Scarcity Resource
A data-driven resource tracking global water scarcity, water bankruptcy, and actionable steps for individuals, communities, and policymakers.
Tech: Jekyll, HTML, CSS, JavaScript
WatermelonClub: Accessible Solidarity Resources
Joyful and accessible Palestine solidarity resources for Canadian students. Learn, organize, take action. Security-first guidance, comprehensive resources, and campus-focused organizing.
Tech: Jekyll, HTML, CSS, Accessibility (WCAG), JavaScript, Dark Mode
Watery: Minimalist Jekyll Starter on Water.css
A minimalist, bare-bones theme for Jekyll that uses the Water.css framework. It was created as an up-to-date starter/skeleton theme for Jekyll, aiming to be lightweight while providing essential features for creating informational websites or blogs.
Tech: Jekyll, HTML, Water.css, Ruby, RubyGems, Google Lighthouse
