Hugo Blog Workflow

☰ Table of Content

Finally get my Hugo Blog workflow iron out.

Ghost, Hugo and Markdown

Early 2017 I switched my blogging package from WordPress to Ghost.

I was attracted to Ghost due to its simplicity, low resource requirement, and most importantly the markdown syntax.

I started using markdown with GitHub. Nowadays I create all my documentation, notes in markdown. Typing them up in VSCode, I don’t need the web GUI interface in Ghost.

Late last year I come across the term static site generator. After experimenting with different packages, I picked Hugo.

Workflow

Hugo is a command line tool. There is no online/web GUI. It does have a steep learning curve during initial setup. However once I lock down my directory structure, theme, and all the commands I need, it become smooth and easy.

Following is the workflow in plan commands:

Create skeleton markdown file.

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cd <blog dir>
hugo new blog/<new-postname>.md

Edit blog post in VSCode.
Test in browser
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hugo server -D

Publish to web server

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hugo
rsync --stats -haz --delete public user@host:/home/user

zsh function

I put the publishing steps with a few enhancement into my zsh function:

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my-blog-deploy () {
  BLOG=<local blog dir>
  PUB=public # Unless you change your hugo config
  SSH_HOST=<user@host>
  SSH_HOME=</home/user>

  start_dir=$(pwd)

  echo --- Dir: ${BLOG}
  cd ${BLOG}

  hugo

  echo --- Fix ${PUB} permission
  chmod -R 750 ${PUB}
  find ${PUB} -type f -exec chmod ugo-x {} \;

  echo --- Rsync start
  rsync --stats -haz --delete ${PUB} ${SSH_HOST}:${SSH_HOME}

  echo
  echo --- Rsync done

  cd ${start_dir}
}

Theme

It is always a pain to pick a new theme when switching packages. I finally settle on the current one, and modified it with AdSense. Following are the original and my fork:

Original: github.com/Vimux/Binario
With AdSense: github.com/J-Siu/Binario

Conclusion

The switch gives me a chance to review my blog writing, technique and post structure. It was a good experience, but not sure if I want another one anytime soon.