write about my beloved fancyindex

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+---
+title: Finally replaced NGINX's Autoindex
+keywords: autoindex nginx css
+date: 2026-07-07
+---
+
+Jeez, I've been dreading this moment for so long, and it wasn't even a hassle.
+
+So I finally set up FancyIndex for NGINX because the built-in autoindex honestly sucks genuine ass. Okay, maybe that's a little harsh. It works. It lists files. It does exactly what it says on the tin. But aesthetically? It's basically a directory listing with unstyled HTML from the stone age.
+
+For the longest time I'd been putting this off because I assumed it'd be one of those projects where you spend six hours reading documentation, rebuilding NGINX with some obscure module, sacrificing a goat to the package manager, and still end up with a blank page and three cryptic error messages.
+
+Instead, it took me a few minutes.
+
+Most of the work wasn't even getting FancyIndex running. The hardest part was deciding how I wanted it to look. It supports custom headers, footers, CSS, sorting, hiding files, and a bunch of little quality-of-life features that make a file index feel like it actually belongs on your website instead of looking like your web server accidentally exposed a folder.
+
+The best part is that it's still just a directory listing. No JavaScript monstrosity, no database, no fancy backend. Drop files into a directory (well, only I have FTP access so sucks to be you) and they're immediately available. That's exactly what I wanted.
+
+I don't know why I kept procrastinating on this one. I guess "I'll do it later" eventually became "I've been saying that for over a year." Turns out the solution was just... reading the documentation for once.
+
+As usual, the thing I'd built up in my head as an enormous nightmare turned out to be one of the easiest upgrades I've made to the server.
+
+I probably should stop doing that.
+
+...Nah.
+
+### slight note here
+
+The only issue I had was that the CSS href didn't want to work so I just caved and shoved a `<link>` in the header.html