Haaretz-Inspired News Website Template

A lightweight Flask template for building a news-style website from Markdown articles.

This project is designed for quick publishing workflows:

• Write article content in Markdown
• Add metadata in YAML front matter
• Render everything into a styled, article-first website

It includes example articles so you can clone, run, and start customizing immediately.

Features

• Flask-based server with simple routing
• Markdown article rendering
• YAML front matter parsing for metadata
• Homepage feed with featured and sidebar sections
• Category filtering page
• Individual article page
• RTL-ready layout and Hebrew sample content

Tech Stack

• Python
• Flask
• python-frontmatter
• Markdown (python-markdown)
• HTML + CSS templates (Jinja2)

Project Structure

.
|-- app.py
|-- articles/
|   |-- food-review.md
|   |-- lebanon-blunder.md
|   |-- rabin-obituary.md
|   `-- trump-iran.md
|-- static/
|   |-- css/
|   |   `-- style.css
|   `-- images/
`-- templates/
    |-- article.html
    `-- index.html

Quick Start

1) Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/haaretz_project.git
cd haaretz_project

2) Create and activate a virtual environment

Windows (PowerShell):

python -m venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

macOS / Linux:

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate

3) Install dependencies

pip install flask python-frontmatter markdown

4) Run the app

python app.py

Open:

http://127.0.0.1:5000

How Articles Work

Each article is a Markdown file in the articles/ folder.

Article metadata is defined in YAML front matter.

Required metadata fields

• title
• author
• category
• date

Optional metadata fields

• main_image
• main_caption

Example article file

---
title: "My Headline"
author: "Your Name"
category: "News"
date: "2026-04-17"
main_image: "https://example.com/image.jpg"
main_caption: "Photo description"
---

This is the article body in Markdown.

You can use **bold**, lists, links, and other Markdown features.

Routes

• / - Homepage with all articles
• /category/<name> - Category view
• /article/<slug> - Full article page

The slug is derived from the filename. Example: articles/food-review.md -> /article/food-review

Included Sample Articles

• Food Review Example
• Lebanon Blunder Example
• Rabin Obituary Example
• Trump Iran Example

Notes

• Keep date format consistent for reliable sorting (recommended: YYYY-MM-DD).
• Categories are read directly from front matter.
• Templates are in templates/, and styling is in static/css/style.css.

Customize for Your News Brand

• Replace the sample Markdown files with your own content
• Adjust colors, typography, and layout in CSS
• Update navigation category links in templates
• Add favicon, logo assets, and analytics as needed

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

See LICENSE for details.