Org based websites w/o export

Org based websites w/o export

[Ken Mankoff]

I've just come across an interesting website generator that I think has
potential for making Org websites. I have no affiliation with this
project, but thought it might interest this community. I have an
interest in an org-based website, but none of the existing ones have met
my needs yet.

Jr https://github.com/Xeoncross/jr is a static static (yes 2x) site
generator. Most static site generators work by you writing markdown,
then you converting to HTML locally, and then you uploading the static
HTML pages. Existing Org site generators work like this to, I think -
export to markdown and then convert again with Jekyll. Or of course you
can convert Org to HTML directly.

Jr works by having javascript render the markdown to HTML. That is, you
write markdown, upload markdown w/o running a generator, and the
generator runs in the browser of the viewer.

This is efficient for the server (simpler pages) and author (no need to
run a static site generator), but may be globally inefficient for a
popular site (many browser doing rendering).

If Jr or a fork rendered Org to HTML instead of Markdown to HTML, then
we could have website that are directly written in Org. A starting place
for this is the existing Javascript support for Org here
http://orgmode.org/manual/JavaScript-support.html but that still
requires you to export the Org file to HTML before uploading it to the
web.

Anyway... maybe of interest to some of y'all. I'll be watching that
program develop and may be contributing to an Org port of it as I have
time.

   -k.

Re: Org based websites w/o export

[Rasmus]

Ken Mankoff <mankoff@gmail.com> writes:

> I've just come across an interesting website generator that I think has
> potential for making Org websites. I have no affiliation with this
> project, but thought it might interest this community. I have an
> interest in an org-based website, but none of the existing ones have met
> my needs yet.
>
> Jr https://github.com/Xeoncross/jr is a static static (yes 2x) site
> generator. Most static site generators work by you writing markdown,
> then you converting to HTML locally, and then you uploading the static
> HTML pages. Existing Org site generators work like this to, I think -
> export to markdown and then convert again with Jekyll. Or of course you
> can convert Org to HTML directly.
>
> Jr works by having javascript render the markdown to HTML. That is, you
> write markdown, upload markdown w/o running a generator, and the
> generator runs in the browser of the viewer.
>
> This is efficient for the server (simpler pages) and author (no need to
> run a static site generator), but may be globally inefficient for a
> popular site (many browser doing rendering).
>
> If Jr or a fork rendered Org to HTML instead of Markdown to HTML, then
> we could have website that are directly written in Org. A starting place
> for this is the existing Javascript support for Org here
> http://orgmode.org/manual/JavaScript-support.html but that still
> requires you to export the Org file to HTML before uploading it to the
> web.
>
> Anyway... maybe of interest to some of y'all. I'll be watching that
> program develop and may be contributing to an Org port of it as I have
> time.

Looks interesting; thanks for sharing.  I'll check it out later.  One
concern, is that for NoScript user, JS is kind of pain compared to
"real" static HTML. . .  I'm guessing these sites completely broken
without JS.

Has anyone tested the Jerkyll Org plugin¹?  It might be v2-specific,
but it would be nice to just be able to commit your Org files. . .

–Rasmus

Footnotes: 
¹   http://jekyllrb.com/docs/plugins/

-- 
May contains speling mistake

Re: Org based websites w/o export

[Bernd Haug]

On 19 May 2014 19:58, Ken Mankoff <mankoff@gmail.com> wrote:
> Jr works by having javascript render the markdown to HTML. That is, you
> write markdown, upload markdown w/o running a generator, and the
> generator runs in the browser of the viewer.
>
> This is efficient for the server (simpler pages) and author (no need to
> run a static site generator), but may be globally inefficient for a
> popular site (many browser doing rendering).

I'd phrase this point more strongly:
The whole concept of intensive client-side rendering
is fashionable, but an eminently bad idea from a
number of perspectives.

I ran my list past Ken and he encouraged me to post them (thanks), so here goes:

1) UX:

Rendering in the browser's rendering engine is always faster than
rendering in JS and then in the browser's rendering engine. Speed
matters.

2) Engineering ("l'art pour l'art"):

Not caching the most eminently cacheable thing on Earth, the rendering
of static web pages, makes baby Dijkstra cry.

3) Economics (egoistical):

Search engines are optimized for interpreting and presenting HTML. If
you want to be found, have your content in HTML.

4) Economics (global):

Electricity ain't free; why spend it many times over even if it's not
you doing the spending?

5) Ecology

There are impacts to wasting power beyond its monetary price.

----

So, enough with the criticism. How to constructively approach this?

If the size difference between HTML and MD makes a difference for
your bandwidth cost, maybe consider just precompressing your files
offline (this, too, can be done prior to uploading…) and teaching your
web server that for files x.html, deliver x.html.gz as a pre
compressed stream first if available.

Cheers, Bernd

Re: Org based websites w/o export

[Detlef Steuer]

Am Tue, 20 May 2014 13:43:20 +0200
schrieb Bernd Haug <bernd.haug@xaidat.com>:

> On 19 May 2014 19:58, Ken Mankoff <mankoff@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Jr works by having javascript render the markdown to HTML. That is,
> > you write markdown, upload markdown w/o running a generator, and the
> > generator runs in the browser of the viewer.
> >
> > This is efficient for the server (simpler pages) and author (no
> > need to run a static site generator), but may be globally
> > inefficient for a popular site (many browser doing rendering).
> 
> I'd phrase this point more strongly:
> The whole concept of intensive client-side rendering
> is fashionable, but an eminently bad idea from a
> number of perspectives.

Thank you for this post! This fashion together with the love for an
unbearable amount of whitespace instead of content on "modern" websites
is irritating. (Ok, at least for me.) 

If you really suffer from converting .md to .html  just automate it with some
makefile and scp magic. You can hack away like in the case of client site 
rendering and you don´t imply the consequences Bernd outlines.

On the server side compression of static pages should help a lot.
(There is a trade off between energy demand and compression of course,
but .gz decompression is very efficient.)

> 
> I ran my list past Ken and he encouraged me to post them (thanks), so
> here goes:
> 
> 1) UX:
> 
> Rendering in the browser's rendering engine is always faster than
> rendering in JS and then in the browser's rendering engine. Speed
> matters.

Think about the runtime and longevity of your mobile phone.
For most this should be a killer argument. :-)

Regards
Detlef 



> 
> 2) Engineering ("l'art pour l'art"):
> 
> Not caching the most eminently cacheable thing on Earth, the rendering
> of static web pages, makes baby Dijkstra cry.
> 
> 3) Economics (egoistical):
> 
> Search engines are optimized for interpreting and presenting HTML. If
> you want to be found, have your content in HTML.
> 
> 4) Economics (global):
> 
> Electricity ain't free; why spend it many times over even if it's not
> you doing the spending?
> 
> 5) Ecology
> 
> There are impacts to wasting power beyond its monetary price.
> 
> ----
> 
> So, enough with the criticism. How to constructively approach this?
> 
> If the size difference between HTML and MD makes a difference for
> your bandwidth cost, maybe consider just precompressing your files
> offline (this, too, can be done prior to uploading…) and teaching your
> web server that for files x.html, deliver x.html.gz as a pre
> compressed stream first if available.
> 
> Cheers, Bernd
> 
>