Dropbox paper markdown generator#
Dropbox paper markdown update#

In my case, I created a new app with its own folder, which is advantageous because your associated API tokens will automatically scope access to that specific folder (as opposed to your entire Dropbox). In Dropbox, you can create an app which is essentially a way of getting programmatic access via the API to files inside your Dropbox. For example, rather than your build command being jekyll build you would do something like node fetch-posts.js & jekyll build. This is done via a custom node script that gets run before Jekyll does its thing. The key difference here is that, rather than have a _posts folder with a bunch of markdown files ( as dictated by Jekyll) directly in my Git repo, I create that folder and its contents at build time by pulling all my plain-text markdown files from Dropbox. You could use anything you want here, but for my example, I use Jekyll because it's probably the most familiar to the most people (plus it's easy to setup with little configuration). To generate a site, you’ll need some framework for generating a static site. Quite often, the plain-text markdown files of your content would also live in your Git repo, but I abstracted those into a separate space (Dropbox) and pull them in at build time.

Dropbox paper markdown generator#

Git + Static Site Generator (GitHub + Jekyll)įor my static site, I have a git repo in GitHub where I store the HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other configuration files which constitute the code of my site. I briefly covered what technologies I’m using to achieve my simplified process for writing and publishing content to the web, but allow me to expand a little more. Or, check out the demo site that gets generated by visiting The Nuts and Bolts You can dive right into the code behind how this works by looking at my simple starter repo: Netlibox (it’s Netlify + Dropbox, I know, naming is hard).

Open a text file in my project repo on my laptop on any device.

Here’s my newly revised process for writing and publishing content to the web using a static site generator: A picture is worth a thousand words, so allow me to illustrate:

With Netlify, my production site is a function of my content: plain-text files.

Dropbox paper markdown update#

When I update content, I don’t even have to think about committing, building, or deploying my site. In other words, the simple act of “saving” a file kicks off a process which builds and publishes my site to the web with the latest content. Then, my build process fetches my plain-text markdown files from Dropbox and builds my static site with the most up-to-date content. I can edit a plain-text markdown file on my laptop, a mobile device, or just about anywhere, and when that update is synced to Dropbox, I can configure a webhook to be sent from Dropbox to Netlify, triggering a new build. Why Dropbox? Because of cross-platform sync. These technologies work in concert to cut even more steps out of my process, making writing and publishing content to the web an act of editing and saving a text file.įirst, I use Dropbox to manage a bunch of plain-text markdown files. When I create a new text file (or edit an existing one) and then save it, why can’t that be the equivalent of hitting “Publish”? Well I’m here to tell you it can.įirst, let me tell you which technologies I’m leveraging: I found myself in a situation where I began asking: look I have a collection of plain text files here which represent the state of my blog. For me, there’s nothing more simple, portable, longevous, or easily editable across operating systems and devices. When it comes to writing for the web and managing content, I love plain-text files written in markdown. This process works pretty well, but I’ve been searching for an even more low-friction process. Changes are automatically deployed to live site.Open a text file in my project repo on my laptop.My current process for writing and publishing content to the web using a static site generator looks like this: