I got into using Handlebars for templates on the index page. I was having issues testing locally due to cross origin requests and not being able to use file:// to put data in a js in a file and share it across the index and individual pages. I solved that by installing http-server for node.js and running that instead. Now I can put the data in one place and share it everywhere.
My next goal will be to use the entry_list_data.js to generate the title and navagation page menu at the top of each entry.