Minimal user-friendly web frontend for Markdown-/BibTeX-to-PDF conversion service
A stripped-down web frontend provides two HTML5 drop zones for uploading a Markdown or BibTeX file, respectively.
The webapp then calls a server-side service (e.g., make or a conversion toolchain) producing a result file
handed off to the browser.
After uploading new source files (.md, .bib), the Markdown file gets converted by
Pandoc, then (together with the BibTeX file) fed to XeLaTeX,
subsequently converted to a PDF.
If the conversion was successful (make exit status determines Ajax call return code), the browser
automatically redirects to the retrieval URL which will trigger the result file to be downloaded/displayed.
The user has to write only minimal markup (Markdown) and may manage her BibTeX entries in a GUI, thus keeping potential distractions to a minimum.
When needed, content source files are simply dragged & dropped onto the jbdiah web page. After a short time (conversion plus download), the compiled, LaTeX-template-powered PDF is returned.
(Of course, the LaTeX template probably has to be customized. User errors wrt encoding, syntax errors in raw inline LaTeX vel sim. are additional aspects but outside of this webapp's scope.)
Valid logins (user names and password hashes) have to be pre-generated and are stored in an XML file written and read using the XStream serialization library.
All page requests run through the AuthFilter, which checks for appropriate cookies set after successful login.