Hello, my partner wants to write a site with me. She likes the idea of Gemini and the simplicity of its syntax, but is not the kind of person to run cli applications like vim and rsync all the time. Which is how I have been doing it. She told me she would prefer to use something like the Nextcloud inbuilt text editor, though that one uses Markdown unfortunately and seems too complex for me to just modify it to work with gemtext right now. So I was wondering, did any of you have similar challenges? What solution did you ultimately go with? There are a few pieces to this puzzle, so I will just list them individually:
Unicorn <unicorn@disroot.org> writes: > Hello, > > my partner wants to write a site with me. She likes the idea of Gemini > and the simplicity of its syntax, but is not the kind of person to run > cli applications like vim and rsync all the time. Which is how I have > been doing it. She told me she would prefer to use something like the > Nextcloud inbuilt text editor, though that one uses Markdown > unfortunately and seems too complex for me to just modify it to work > with gemtext right now. > > So I was wondering, did any of you have similar challenges? What > solution did you ultimately go with? There are a few pieces to this > puzzle, so I will just list them individually: > > * Easy writing of the text itself with Linux or web-based GUI (syntax > highlighting is a big plus, fancy rendering of headers or lists etc > is not necessary because it's already so simple) > * The text should be structured in directories in the exact same way > that the site ultimately will be > * The whole structure of files should be accessible to both of us, > either with some server-based solution or with eg. Syncthing keeping > the state of our computers in sync > * The whole structure of files needs to be regularly uploaded to the > server that is hosting our site > > I would be thankful for any suggestions! I believe finding a practical > solution for this type of user would be important for more people to > access gemini as writers. So even if you want to suggest a community > effort for modifying an existing tool or creating a new one, I am open > to working on it and hearing your ideas :) > > Best, > Unicorn I never did something like this (I usually just use git or rsync to publish) but maybe syncthing[0] is an option too. If you don't know it, it like dropbox, you can share directories across various devices, it's decentralized, free and available for (almost?) all operating systems. It can sync the files between your and her laptop, and if you don't want to insta-publish the changes to your server, you can turn off syncthing on your server and turn it on only when you're ready to publish. For editing you can use whatever text-editor you like. Nextcloud could be an option too, but it seems to require more effort. IIRC you can edit also plain text files with the built-in editor, but it won't do syntax highlighting and you have to find a solution for the publishing part. Cheers, Omar Polo [0]: https://syncthing.net/
I'd recommend using a network file system. Once it's mounted it becomes transparent to the users and any text editor will be fine.
Unicorn <unicorn@disroot.org> writes: > So I was wondering, did any of you have similar challenges? What > solution did you ultimately go with? There are a few pieces to this > puzzle, so I will just list them individually: > > * Easy writing of the text itself with Linux or web-based GUI (syntax > highlighting is a big plus, fancy rendering of headers or lists etc > is not necessary because it's already so simple) Just let her use any text editor with Gemtext syntax support. I use Emacs with gemini-mode, which is great and even lets you follow your links from file to file. I'm sure there are a number of other editors out there to choose from with a similar kind of plugin. > * The text should be structured in directories in the exact same way > that the site ultimately will be Use your GUI file manager to make directories and new Gemtext files. I haven't used one in years, but I'm pretty sure you just need to right-click in a folder and select New Folder or New Text File each time you want to create something. All Gemini servers (to my knowledge anyway) will map URLs to file paths from a specified document root directory, which should be the toplevel directory containing your capsule pages. > * The whole structure of files should be accessible to both of us, > either with some server-based solution or with eg. Syncthing keeping > the state of our computers in sync Set up a Nextcloud server on the machine that is running your Gemini server. Make one of your Nextcloud folders your document root directory for your capsule. Install Nextcloud clients on your local computer and your partner's computer. Create your capsule directories and pages in a folder automatically synced to your remotely hosted Nextcloud server. This should ensure that any files that either of you create, edit, or delete will automatically be shared between you two and published to your public Gemini capsule with no additional steps. > * The whole structure of files needs to be regularly uploaded to the > server that is hosting our site See the previous point's comments about automatic publishing. If you want to manually publish file changes instead, you should be able to configure your Nextcloud client to only upload file changes when you manually run it rather than automatically. Best of luck, Gary -- GPG Key ID: 7BC158ED Use `gpg --search-keys lambdatronic' to find me Protect yourself from surveillance: https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org ======================================================================= () ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail /\ www.asciiribbon.org - against proprietary attachments Why is HTML email a security nightmare? See https://useplaintext.email/ Please avoid sending me MS-Office attachments. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
On Apr-20 16:16, Unicorn wrote: > She told me she would prefer to use something like the Nextcloud > inbuilt text editor, though that one uses Markdown unfortunately [...] > I would be thankful for any suggestions! You could set up a script that uses a tool like https://github.com/makeworld-the-better-one/md2gemini to convert the Markdown files into Gemtext and upload them to the server or move them to a specified shared folder.
20 Apr 2021 18:34:46 Omar Polo <op@omarpolo.com>: > I never did something like this (I usually just use git or rsync to publish) but maybe syncthing[0] is an option too. Yeah, we have been using syncthing for other purposes, but then there is still the question of what would be a simple text editor, optimally with syntax highlighting, that she could use. > Nextcloud could be an option too, but it seems to require more effort. IIRC you can edit also plain text files with the built-in editor, but it won't do syntax highlighting and you have to find a solution for the publishing part. Unfortunately .gmi is not recognized as plain text :/ I was considering webdav to get the files out, but that also seems unnecessarily complicated. I suppose local editing with sync is a better idea unless there is a different server-based option thats better. Thanks for the input though :) Best, Unicorn
> Yeah, we have been using syncthing for other purposes, but then there is > still the question of what would be a simple text editor, optimally with > syntax highlighting, that she could use. I would recommend Visual Studio Code [1] with the Gemini plugin [2]. I am aware that it is not ideal from many points of view but it is available on almost all platforms, has easy-to-understand UI even for someone coming Microsoft Office and with another plugin [3] can even directly connect to server through SSH and show the files the same way as local ones. I am using VS Code to collaborate on LaTeX files with my wife and it is working for us. Have a nice day -- Sgiath GPG: 0x70F9C7DE34CB3BC8 () ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail /\ www.asciiribbon.org - against proprietary attachments [1] https://code.visualstudio.com/ [2] https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=aaronduino.gemini [3] https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-vscode-remote.remote-ssh
Unicorn writes:
> 20 Apr 2021 18:34:46 Omar Polo <op@omarpolo.com>:
>> I never did something like this (I usually just use git or rsync to
>> publish) but maybe syncthing[0] is an option too.
>
> Yeah, we have been using syncthing for other purposes, but then there
> is still the question of what would be a simple text editor, optimally
> with syntax highlighting, that she could use.
I *think* I remember someone creating a Gemini syntax highlighting
plugin for either GEdit or Kate...
Ah, searching pulls up this plugin that should work for gedit:
https://git.scuttlebot.io/%25bIpwmyP44M5EXF6SdICYQa8rBHhvRRtmqnclkZRx2%2BE%3D.sha256
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