The main purpose of this web application is to automatically extract blog posts, defined in markdown-format, from a Github Pages repository and to convert it into an XML-format with the help of jekyll. This XML format is compatible with CMS "First-Spirit" from E-Spirit, a member of the adesso Group . The main goal of this project is to provide a developer friendly way (using pure git) for submitting blog posts to a CMS based web site.
Before you can start the application, make sure that the following components are installed correctly on your local system.
- Git (v2.4 or higher) Download
- Java Development Kit (JDK) (v1.8 or higher) Download
- jekyll (v3.5.0 or higher) Download and getting started
You can check if the tools are installed correctly by trying to execute them with the version command (e.g. git --version)
If all necessary tools are installed, you can checkout jekyll2cms on GitHub. Use this link as clone URI. After the checkout, you first need to configure and build the application before you can start it. In the folder src/main/resources/ you will find a file named application-sample.properties. Rename the file to application.properties and open it for inserting your local configuration. It is necessary, for example, to define to which local destination the remote repository is cloned to (repository.local.path) and, of course, the URL of the remote repository (repository.remote.url) which contains the markdown files. It is assumed that the XML output is also pulled to the same remote repository. You must also specify the destination path for the generated XML files and the login data of a user who is allowed to push on the remote repository. The comments in the sample file should help you doing the configuration right. Note that the remote repository must have the same structure as you require in the application.properties (e.g. if you require the blog post files in markdown in a folder /_posts, make sure that this folder exists on the remote repository).
After you have done the configuration, you can build the application. Open a new terminal window in the root directory of the project and run gradlew build. The output should be BUILD SUCESSFUL.
Open a new terminal window in the root folder of the project an run
java -jar build/libs/jekyll2cms-0.0.1.jar
After you started the application without faults, it will clone the remote repository. If there is already a local clone, the repository will fetch and merge (pull) updates automatically. The received blog-content in markdown will be transformed into First-Spirit-compatible XML, which is stored in the folder you defined in the application properties and pushed back to the remote repository.
To check for updates, jekyll2cms executes every 10 seconds a new pull to check regularly for new blog posts. If the application detects a change in markdown-file, the XML will be updated and pushed to the remote repository.
If you want to create a blog post, you must define a markdown file which follows the following structure:
---
# layout is required. DO NOT CHANGE.
layout: [post, post-xml]
# title is required. Add the title of your post.
title: "adesso AG Blog Post Example"
# date is required. If possible, also provide a time. e.g. 2017-08-10 10:25:00.
date: 2017-08-10 10:25:00
# If you are modifying an existing post, provide a date for it.
modified_date:
# author must be your name used in the _data/authors.yml file.
author: jondoe
# Categories are written inside square brackets '[cat1, cat2]' and are separated by commas.
# add at least one category name.
categories: [Technologie]
# Tags are written inside square brackets '[tag1, tag2]' and are separated by commas.
# tags are optional, but help to narrow down the subject of the blog post
tags: [Digitalisierung, Banken]
---
You’ll find this post in the `_posts` directory.
To add new posts, simply add a file in the `_posts` directory that follows the convention `YYYY-MM-DD-name-of-post.markdown` and includes the necessary front matter. Take a look at the source for this post to get an idea about how it works.
The markdown file must be stored to the folder you defined in the property jekyll.path.posts. For creating or modifying it is recommended not to work on the same local clone as jekyll2cms does. It is better to have a second clone at other location on your local system. It is also possible to edit the markdown files directly with the help of the GitHub-GUI (if you work with GitHub; in general you can use every Git-based system to work with jekyll2cms). The local clone defined in repository.local.path should only be used by jekyll2cms.
After adding or updating a markdown file, jekyll2cms will detect the changes when the next pull-command is executed (currently every 10th second). The XML output will be created and pushed immediately to the remote repository so that it can be received by the end user with the next manual pull.
In general, there is no support for this software available. For any questions, feedback or issues write a mail to info[replace with the at-sign]adesso.de and ask for the Open Source Team.
This software is released under MIT-License. Copyright (c) 2017 adesso AG, 44269 Dortmund
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.