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Scaffold a 1990s Geocities-themed static website in seconds

Project description

๐ŸŒ geocities-boilerplate

Scaffold a complete 1990s Geocities-themed static website in seconds.

PyPI version PyPI downloads License: MIT Demo

  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ•— โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ•— โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ•—  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ•—โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•—โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ•—โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•—โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ•—โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ•—
 โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•”โ•โ•โ•โ•โ• โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•”โ•โ•โ•โ•โ•โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•”โ•โ•โ•โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•—โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•”โ•โ•โ•โ•โ•โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•‘โ•šโ•โ•โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•”โ•โ•โ•โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•‘โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•”โ•โ•โ•โ•โ•โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•”โ•โ•โ•โ•โ•
 โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•‘  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ•—โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ•—  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•‘   โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•‘โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•‘     โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•‘   โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•‘   โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•‘โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ•—  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ•—
 โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•‘   โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•‘โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•”โ•โ•โ•  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•‘   โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•‘โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•‘     โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•‘   โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•‘   โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•‘โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•”โ•โ•โ•  โ•šโ•โ•โ•โ•โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•‘
 โ•šโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ•”โ•โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ•—โ•šโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ•”โ•โ•šโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ•—โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•‘   โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•‘   โ–ˆโ–ˆโ•‘โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ•—โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ•‘
  โ•šโ•โ•โ•โ•โ•โ• โ•šโ•โ•โ•โ•โ•โ•โ• โ•šโ•โ•โ•โ•โ•โ•  โ•šโ•โ•โ•โ•โ•โ•โ•šโ•โ•   โ•šโ•โ•   โ•šโ•โ•โ•šโ•โ•โ•โ•โ•โ•โ•โ•šโ•โ•โ•โ•โ•โ•โ•

         geocities-boilerplate  โœจ  Welcome to 1996  โœจ

๐ŸŒ View Live Demo


What is this?

geocities-boilerplate is a CLI tool that generates a fully self-contained, retro 1990s Geocities-style personal website. Think neon colors, blinking text, animated star trails, marquee banners, visitor counters, and guestbooks โ€” all of it, generated instantly with a single command.

The generated site is pure static HTML, CSS, and vanilla JavaScript. No build tools, no frameworks, no dependencies. Just open index.html in any browser and relive the golden age of the web.


Quick Start

# one-shot with pipx (recommended โ€” no permanent install)
pipx run create-geocities-app my-site

# or install permanently
pip install create-geocities-app
create-geocities-app my-site

Then open my-site/index.html in your browser. That's it!


Every Way to Run It

Pick your language or runtime โ€” all produce the same site.

Python / PyPI

# one-shot with pipx (recommended)
pipx run create-geocities-app my-site

# or install permanently
pip install create-geocities-app
create-geocities-app my-site

Node.js / npm

# one-shot, no install
npx create-geocities-app my-site

# or install globally
npm install -g create-geocities-app
create-geocities-app my-site

Ruby / RubyGems

gem install create-geocities-app
create-geocities-app my-site

Rust / Cargo

cargo install create-geocities-app
create-geocities-app my-site

PHP / Composer

# global install
composer global require geocities-app/create-geocities-app
create-geocities-app my-site

# or as a project scaffold
composer create-project geocities-app/create-geocities-app my-site

Deno / JSR

# run without installing
deno run --allow-read --allow-write jsr:@geocities/create-app my-site

# or compile to a native binary first
deno compile --allow-read --allow-write --output create-geocities-app jsr:@geocities/create-app
./create-geocities-app my-site

Go

# run without installing
go run github.com/sugardaddyapp/geocities-boilerplate/go@latest my-site

# or install the binary
go install github.com/sugardaddyapp/geocities-boilerplate/go@latest
create-geocities-app my-site

All variants accept the same flags:

Flag Meaning
my-site Output directory name (default: my-geocities-site)
-y / --yes Skip all prompts and use defaults

Demo

Live demo: https://sugardaddyapp.github.io/geocities-boilerplate/

The demo is generated with all options enabled (neon theme, sparkle cursor, falling stars, all 5 pages). It is automatically rebuilt and deployed to GitHub Pages on every push to main.


Interactive Setup

When you run create-geocities-app my-site, you'll be walked through a series of prompts:

# Prompt Type Description
1 Site name text Your homepage title, e.g. CoolDude's Homepage
2 Your name text Displayed in headers, footers, and contact sections
3 Color theme select Choose from 5 retro color palettes (see below)
4 Extra pages multi About, Gallery, Guestbook, Cool Links
5 Cursor effect select Sparkle, Star Trail, Comet, Rainbow, or None
6 Falling effect select Stars, Snow, or None
7 Welcome alert yes/no Show a alert() greeting when the page loads
8 Auto-play music yes/no Play a Web Audio API 8-bit jingle on load
9 Fake high count yes/no Start visitor counter at ~10,000 (looks popular!)

Skip prompts (use all defaults)

create-geocities-app my-site --yes

Generated Output

my-site/
โ”œโ”€โ”€ index.html        โ† Homepage
โ”œโ”€โ”€ about.html        โ† About Me (if selected)
โ”œโ”€โ”€ gallery.html      โ† Photo Gallery with lightbox (if selected)
โ”œโ”€โ”€ guestbook.html    โ† Guestbook (if selected)
โ”œโ”€โ”€ links.html        โ† Cool Links (if selected)
โ”œโ”€โ”€ css/
โ”‚   โ””โ”€โ”€ style.css     โ† Full retro stylesheet (theme-specific)
โ””โ”€โ”€ js/
    โ””โ”€โ”€ main.js       โ† All JS effects (counter, cursor, music, etc.)

Zero runtime dependencies in the generated output. Every file is self-contained and works offline.


Color Themes

Choose a theme during setup. Each theme controls background, text, link, and accent colors throughout the entire site.

Theme Background Primary Text Headings Links Feel
neon #000000 #00FF00 #FFFF00 #FF00FF Hacker/Matrix vibes
space #000033 #CCCCFF #FFDD00 #00FFFF Deep space explorer
candy #FF69B4 #FFFFFF #FFFF00 #00FFFF Sweet and electric
forest #003300 #CCFFCC #FFDD00 #99FF99 Dark enchanted forest
windows #008080 #000000 #000080 #000080 Classic Windows 95

Pages

๐Ÿ  index.html โ€” Homepage

Every generated site includes a homepage with:

  • Marquee banner โ€” scrolling welcome text (CSS animation, no deprecated <marquee> tag)
  • Rainbow animated site title โ€” CSS hue-rotate animation cycles through all colors
  • Neon-pulsing headings โ€” text-shadow breathes in and out
  • "What's New" section โ€” with blinking NEW badges
  • Under Construction section โ€” animated yellow/black caution tape
  • Sidebar โ€” navigation, live clock, spinning globe, visitor counter, web ring
  • Web ring widget โ€” retro navigation to prev/home/next sites
  • Footer โ€” "Best viewed in Netscape Navigator" badge, copyright

๐Ÿ‘ค about.html โ€” About Me

  • Fun Facts list โ€” blinking star bullet points
  • Interests grid โ€” styled badge chips for hobbies
  • Favorites table โ€” a retro-styled table of favorite things (music, movies, games, etc.)
  • Contact section โ€” email and guestbook links

๐Ÿ–ผ๏ธ gallery.html โ€” Photo Gallery

  • Photo of the Month spotlight at the top
  • 3-column image grid โ€” each item has thick beveled Windows-95-style borders
  • Captions in Comic Sans below each image
  • Lightbox viewer โ€” click any photo to open it full-size in an overlay; press ESC or click outside to close
  • Placeholder images pre-filled โ€” replace with your own

๐Ÿ“– guestbook.html โ€” Guestbook

  • Sign form โ€” fields for name, email, website, location, and message
  • Fake previous entries โ€” pre-populated with period-authentic guestbook posts (fully editable)
  • Client-side submit โ€” shows a thank-you alert and resets the form
  • Note explaining how to add a real backend (Formspree, Netlify Forms, etc.)

๐Ÿ”— links.html โ€” Cool Links

  • Links organized into categories: Friends, Games, Web & Tech, Art, News
  • Blinking animated bullets before each link
  • Description text below each link
  • "Request Link Exchange" email button

Effects Reference

Cursor Effects

Effect What it does
Sparkle โœจ Random glitter glyphs (โœฆ, โœง, โ˜…, ยท) spawn at your cursor and float upward
Star Trail โ˜… Yellow โ˜… characters follow the cursor and fade out with a scale-down animation
Comet โ˜„๏ธ An orange-to-white horizontal streak trails behind cursor movement
Rainbow ๐ŸŒˆ Colored dots cycle through the full hue spectrum as you move the cursor
None No cursor effect

Falling Background Effects

Effect What it does
Stars โญ 60 colored star characters (โ˜…) fall from top of screen with random sizes, speeds, and drift
Snow โ„๏ธ 40 white circular snowflakes drift downward with random horizontal drift
None No falling effect

Other Effects

Effect Details
Visitor counter Odometer-style LCD digit boxes, animates on load, persists via localStorage
Live clock HH:MM:SS display in the sidebar, updated every second
Marquee banner CSS @keyframes scroll animation โ€” pauses on hover
Blinking text CSS @keyframes blink โ€” used on NEW badges, bullet points, and decorations
Rainbow headings CSS filter: hue-rotate() animation cycles through all colors
Neon glow pulse text-shadow breathes in/out on all major headings
Spinning globe ๐ŸŒ emoji spins continuously via CSS rotate animation
Under construction Yellow/black diagonal-stripe caution tape with a spinning ๐Ÿšง icon
Page entry animation Content fades and slides up on load
8-bit music jingle Square-wave melody via Web Audio API โ€” plays on first interaction; toggle with the PLAY/STOP button
Matrix rain Press M on any page to toggle a green Matrix-style canvas rain effect
Custom scrollbar Themed scrollbar matching the color palette (Chrome/Edge/Safari)
Gallery lightbox Click-to-expand image viewer with caption, close button, and ESC key support

GitHub Pages Setup (for your generated site)

To host your generated site on GitHub Pages:

  1. Create a new GitHub repository
  2. Copy the contents of your generated folder into it
  3. Push to main
  4. Go to Settings โ†’ Pages โ†’ Source โ†’ Deploy from a branch โ†’ main โ†’ / (root)
  5. Your site is live at https://<username>.github.io/<repo-name>/

Requirements

  • Python 3.8+
  • questionary (installed automatically via pip)

Contributing

  1. Fork the repo
  2. Create a feature branch: git checkout -b feat/my-awesome-feature
  3. Make changes in python/create_geocities_app/
  4. Test locally: cd python && pip install -e . && create-geocities-app test-site --yes && open test-site/index.html
  5. Open a pull request

Ideas for contributions

  • New color themes
  • Additional page types (music page, art gallery, blog page)
  • More cursor effects (pixel trail, fire cursor)
  • A --theme <name> CLI flag to skip the theme prompt

Local Development

# Clone
git clone https://github.com/sugardaddyapp/geocities-boilerplate.git
cd geocities-boilerplate/python

# Install in editable mode
pip install -e .

# Test the CLI
create-geocities-app my-test-site

# Or run directly
python -m create_geocities_app my-test-site

License

MIT ยฉ Jamey Baldwin


Acknowledgements

  • Inspired by the preserved GeoCities archive and GifCities
  • Color palette ideas from the original GeoCities neighborhood aesthetics
  • Built with โค๏ธ and an unhealthy amount of nostalgia for 1996

Also checkout my other projects: Best Sugar Daddy Apps Best Sugar Daddy Apps 2026 Best Sugar Daddy Apps NPM Best Sugar Daddy Apps Socket

Best viewed in Netscape Navigator 4.0 at 800ร—600 resolution.

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