Content as Code workflow

[pierreozoux]

Problem Space

As a community, I'd like to have an efficient workflow to:

• edit a document
• publish a document

A bit like a wiki, but

• with a customizable html style
• MD for editing
• something like git for the workflow, or Nextcloud version for a starter

Solution Space

@jmatsushita created this concept some years ago, and it is called https://iilab.github.io/contentascode/

And I think, that Nextcloud could be a nice platform to start this, again. I don't think that this app is perfect for the job, but it could be part of the solution.

3 related issues:

• https://github.com/nextcloud/text/issues/418 cc @robert-winkler
• https://github.com/nextcloud/text/issues/145 cc @paulhibbitts @brainchild0 @hugoroy @sunjam @gary-kim @PhrozenByte

I'm tagging the people because I think you know what I mean, and you have around the same idea.

The workflow we are considering:

• A main group folder for index
• then various group folders for different teams
• a common tag, like 'publish' to mark content as ready to be published
• a side job that is watching a mounted webdav of the main folder and compile hugo on the fly and publish remotely
• a button on the top right corner to edit the document and link back to Nc (editable, depending on the access of the document)

It would be kind of a mix between PicoCMS, this app, the Md app, and a possibility to manage Front Matters as a separate concern.

But when you consider that frontmatter can become some sort of database, we could also as well create a monster ;)

Alternative considered

We looked at many alternatives for that already, you can see some discussions here.

The most promising lately have been:

• https://demo.codimd.org/ but currently lacking the group part, we already developed some kind of automated workflow to publish automaticaly website from it
• https://jamstack.org/ with the netlify backend

Additional context

This is probably not the best place to discuss that, But in the forum, I can't have the nice semantic link to other issues, and be able to ping people, so here I am. I you like the idea, subscribe to the issue, put a 👍 and I'll let you know when we have a POC to show around. Maintainers, feel free to close this issue as a won't solve. I totally get that this app should stay simple to get started. But it should also not destroy the MD underneath ;)

[kosssi]

I make this with my customers, and I disable markdown editor on Nextcloud :'(, because frontmatter is not implemented.

My workflow:

• Create Hugo website
• Synchronize with Nextcloud
• Share content folder with my customer
• Nextcloud Client for synchronise file (customer side)
• Marktext to edit markdown locally (customer side)
• Draft label on frontmatter to deploy on preprod or prod

Being able to correctly edit a frontmatter file could simplify the operation, but already it's great. Long live static sites.

Devops side:

• Docker container synchronise Webdav
• Docker container push to gitea when file update
• Drone CI build site with new content
• Docker container with stats generation with goaccess every 24h

All hosted on raspberry in my home

[mejo-]

Given that all mentioned issues got resolved in the meantime, do you think that Text is ready to be used as one part of your desired workflow by now @pierreozoux?

I'll label the bugreport as 'needs info' and close it for now. Feel free to reopen it in case you consider it in case you think there's missing pieces.