Midwest Mesh Lab

The site for midwestmeshlab.net — an open hub for off-grid mesh networking, Raspberry Pi, and open hardware across the Midwest.

It's a static site: one self-contained index.html plus a few content pages. No build step.

Run it

Open index.html in a browser, or serve the folder with any static server.

Deploy

Connected to Netlify. No build step — the repo root is the web root. Every push to main redeploys automatically. All deploy config (headers, CSP, redirects) lives in netlify.toml, which is the single source of truth; there is deliberately no _headers file.

Edit content

Almost everything lives in plain arrays at the bottom of index.html (MANUALS, BUILDS, POSTS, EVENTS, MN_NODES, …). Add a line, commit, push. Full guide: ADMIN.md.

Layout

index.html                 the site (HTML + CSS + JS in one file)
troubleshoot.html          guided Meshtastic troubleshooter (works without JS)
404.html                   custom not-found page (names unwritten guides)
thanks.html                form submission landing page
netlify.toml               deploy config: headers, CSP, redirects
events.ics                 calendar people subscribe to
robots.txt
.well-known/security.txt   security contact (RFC 9116)
assets/page.css            shared styles for content pages
manuals/  builds/  notes/  content pages (copy the templates inside)
tools/build-map.js         regenerates the Minnesota map geometry
ADMIN.md                   how to operate everything

The Minnesota map

The state outline is generated, not hand-drawn: tools/build-map.js projects public-domain boundary data through an Albers Equal Area Conic projection and prints an SVG path, and the viewBox matches the true projected aspect ratio so nothing is stretched. City markers are real lat/lon run through the same projection. Run node tools/build-map.js to regenerate; don't hand-edit the path in index.html.

Forms

There is no mail server: midwestmeshlab.net has no MX records, so the old contact@midwestmeshlab.net address bounced. Both forms post to Netlify Forms instead and land on /thanks.html. netlify.toml must keep skip_processing = false or Netlify never registers them.

No invented content

Lists that have no real data yet (community builds, Instagram tiles, events, mesh nodes) ship empty, with an empty state explaining why. Cards whose page isn't written are tagged In progress via CONFIG.previewMode. Please keep it that way: add real entries, don't seed plausible-looking examples.

License

Code MIT · words & docs CC BY-SA. Not affiliated with Meshtastic LLC, Raspberry Pi Ltd, or MSP Mesh; those names are used nominatively. See the disclaimer in the site footer.