

Show HN: Arturo.io – Automatic book builds on GitHub - ortuna
https://arturo.io

======
arafalov
Leanpub does offer GitHub integration, including private Github account
access. I am using it right now.

And you can setup a commit hook to trigger the preview build automatically.

Given that common base, I am curious what the specific other difference are.
Especially to justify paying for a private repo account.

~~~
ortuna
Leanpub Github integration instructions are @
[http://blog.leanpub.com/2014/04/github-
integration.html](http://blog.leanpub.com/2014/04/github-integration.html)

They are very awkward instructions. I have yet to use it, so I can't comment
on the quality of it. Arturo pushes a build and a diff for each PR(attaches to
the link on the orange/red/green dots). This is a start of Arturo and I would
love it to be Open Source and Developer friendly, focusing more on the Books +
Code aspect.

~~~
arafalov
I got it working the first time, so I guess it is not terribly confusing (for
a developer).

It does build all the versions of the document on each push, which I find
makes it a bit slower for frequent check-in.

The diff idea is interesting as a value add, especially - I project - for per-
diff discussion or so.

In any case, this was not a disparagement. At this point, the more of these
ideas we have, the better it is. I just wanted to point out that at least some
of the functionality was already implemented somewhere else.

------
guynamedloren
Nice work. Similar projects are
[https://www.softcover.io/](https://www.softcover.io/) and
[https://www.gitbook.io/](https://www.gitbook.io/).

I'm in the same space with Penflip
([https://www.penflip.com/](https://www.penflip.com/)), though I'm aiming to
be more non-developer friendly. The books are still backed by git repos (with
full git access if desired), but it's masked with a web interface for the most
part.

~~~
ortuna
I've been following Penflip since you posted your Show HN(awesome damn job by
the way). I was building both a front end editor along with the build system.
It ended up being too much to build, so I focused on the generator portion of
it.

I do know about softcover and gitbook(both great products). My hope is to work
on the generator rather than providing a store front/ public facing sites.

Next thing I would like to tackle is code insertion from source files. Where
the source files can be tested and Arturo can put snippets from the source
files. Would be great to have community books and examples that are self
tested.

------
josegonzalez
While the idea is quite nice, there doesn't seem to be any indication as to
what version of markdown is in use. Probably not Leanpub - given that there
aren't any published parsers - but is it Kramdown/MultiMarkdown/GFM/Classic?

~~~
ortuna
It's GFM for now. I'd like to build it out more and have other formats and
parsers.

------
rdegges
I'm actually writing a book now, and would love to use this. The first thing
that pops into my mind is: are there any example books I can look at so I can
see what this will look like?

~~~
ortuna
The documentation is actually a generate(HTML only) book @
[https://github.com/Arturo-io/Documentation](https://github.com/Arturo-
io/Documentation)

The Progit book is a public book I've been testing on as well.
[https://arturo.io/repositories/11242128](https://arturo.io/repositories/11242128)

As a note all the styles/fonts can be customized with CSS e.g.
[https://github.com/Ortuna/progit-
bana/blob/master/manifest.y...](https://github.com/Ortuna/progit-
bana/blob/master/manifest.yml)

I'm working on putting more features/options up.

------
nacs
Plans for Bitbucket/3rd party git support?

~~~
ortuna
Bitbucket for sure. I'd be exhausting my Git fu, if I where to guess at what
it entails to implement the 3rd party support. So, I shy away from promising
it.

------
parfamz
Render in chrome in android is terrible

~~~
ortuna
Should be more usably now. I'm going to be devoting more time to mobile
usability.

------
MORGELD
...and it isn't open-source. Why?

~~~
ortuna
Would love to and I have no objections to it. I work on some popular open
source projects. It would be very difficult to work on this project while
growing a community for it as well(this has been, for the most part a side
project).

~~~
jnbiche
Nonsense. If you're hoping to earn your living on this, and it's good enough
that people want to use it, they can cough up $5 a month for it, or use the
free plan. And it looks like it's attracting some good attention...

People have to realize that even open source devs have to make a living, and
not all of us are fortunate enough to work for an open source friendly
employer. In fact, if you're like me, a single well-paying project like this
one would greatly free up your time available for open source projects and
_increase_ your open source contributions.

I've seen what happens when open source devs rely solely on user donations,
even ones with really popular and useful projects: they starve.

Side note: assuming the cost is indeed $5 and $19.99 a month, you need to make
the "per month" explicit. Right now, if someone signed up and you dinged them
for multiple months, they could technically but correctly lodge a complaint
with your payment processor for illicit charges.

~~~
ortuna
Good catch, its /month when actually signing up but I've updated it.

------
pbiggar
Wow, CI for books! Cool idea :)

~~~
ortuna
Exactly! Thanks :D

