
HubPress – A web application to build your Blog on GitHub - rcarmo
http://hubpress.io/index.html
======
jarcane
This is very cool. I'm currently using a static blog generator (Frog) to run
mine, but to be honest the appeal has started to wear on me because of the
barriers involved between writing something and actually pushing it. I'm a lot
more likely to actually get some writing up if I can just click in a box and
start writing, whereas at the moment I've got to generate a new post template,
edit it, re-build the page, then push the lot.

It's a minor inconvenience, but it's one that's been enough on more than a few
occasions for me to just say bugger it and post my thoughts elsewhere or just
not bother.

~~~
krat0sprakhar
> because of the barriers involved between writing something and actually
> pushing it

Can you explain what barriers are you talking about? I moved from a CMS to
static blog only to reduce these barriers. For me, a new post is just three
steps

    
    
       $ hugo new <post>
       $ vim <post>
       $ git commit -am "new post" && git push
    

which is something I vastly prefer as I am in my text-editor. Even the live
preview is easily made possible with livereload (pre-built in Hugo).

The best use-case of hubpress, IMHO, is when I want to publish from mobile (or
when my dev environment is not unavailable)

[0] - [http://gohugo.io/](http://gohugo.io/)

~~~
probably_wrong
In my case, the main barrier is switching constantly between environments.
When I was using Wordpress, I had everything right there in my browser. Now
that I've moved to a static blog, I have

    
    
      * A text editor, where I write the post
      * A terminal, where I commit/push my changes
      * A web browser, where I preview my changes
    

The constant switching between contexts makes it harder for me to focus. Of
course, there are advantages (I can now write on the train and push everything
afterwards), but I do feel the difference.

~~~
b3kart
Isn't it like the whole point? You use a tool which is best for the job. Like
in
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy).

~~~
oblio
Did the Unix philosophy ever win out for end users? As far as the eye can see
there's only integration. Microsoft Office is the most popular office suite,
Photoshop integrates probably 1000 tools, etc.

The only place users have accepted a single tool for a single role seem to be
mobile apps, because the interface is so limited.

At least that's my impression...

------
parennoob
One thing to remember before hosting your blog on Github is that content seems
to be censored by them far more actively than other platforms (e.g. Wordpress)

Case in point -- this parody account that was shut down by Github
([http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/19/feminist_software_fo...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/19/feminist_software_foundation_c_plus_equality/))
without any legal need for the same. You may think today "Oh, that's fine,
they were assholes anyway", but in principle, the same thing could happen to
you tomorrow if your blog conflicts with the Github values du jour.

~~~
Karunamon
Worth mentioning - Github is a great place for code since code itself is
rarely objectionable, but when you begin hosting writing there, they appear to
be really quick to drop the censorship hammer for questionable reasons, hiding
behind the ToS when questioned.

Blogs are the simplest thing in the world to host - a $5 VM at Digital Ocean
or similar all but eliminates any censorship concerns, and a static generator
like Octopress ensures that you have an easily-rehostable backup of your words
in case of the contrary.

~~~
arca_vorago
Be warned, I love Digital Ocean but they have been caught doing the same
thing. Hosting blogs there that push any edges is dangerous.

~~~
Karunamon
Ouch.. I wasn't aware of that. Any other providers you can think of that are
more free-speech oriented?

~~~
arca_vorago
Not that I am aware of. Even the EFF prism break only lists one webhost and
that webhost is invite only and you have to use their SSL keys (no thank
you!). There is also riseup but again it is invite only.

It's a major issue because according to law, they have to be able to take down
illegal content, but to protect themselves most hosts will simply take down
anything even close to it. Where this gets dangerous is regarding non-court
ordered claims of illegality, such as DMCA takedowns, claims of libel, hate-
speech, etc.

I wish I had a better answer for you. I have though about trying to host via
countries like Switzerland, but I don't want to have to use another countries
host just to have free speech.

Honestly I'm getting to the point that paying for my own colocation of a
server I control and is locked up would be the best way to go. Still have
similar issues with the colo companies refusing to host certain content, but
you have to pick your battles.

The other alternative would be to get business level service so you can host
via your home ISP. If you try to do it with your consumer service they can
find it and tell you that hosting content is not part of the agreement.

------
tux
Very cool, but please add full github markdown support.
[https://github.com/adam-p/markdown-here/wiki/Markdown-
Cheats...](https://github.com/adam-p/markdown-here/wiki/Markdown-Cheatsheet)

~~~
TruthSHIFT
It seems that the authors made a specific point to not use Markdown:

[http://blog.hubpress.io/2015/02/06/HubPress-a-web-
applicatio...](http://blog.hubpress.io/2015/02/06/HubPress-a-web-application-
to-build-static-blog-on-GitHub-Pages.html)

~~~
Anthonny
My point of view is that asciidoc is really powerful and underused, that's why
i focused on it.

However, HubPress is powered by Asciidoctor
([http://asciidoctor.org](http://asciidoctor.org)) which provide a
compatibilty with Markdown : [http://asciidoctor.org/docs/asciidoc-syntax-
quick-reference/...](http://asciidoctor.org/docs/asciidoc-syntax-quick-
reference/#markdown-compatibility-asciidoctor-only)

------
oaf357
I'm surprised there aren't more things like this out there. With GitHub,
Tumblr, etc. basically allowing you to host almost whatever you want it's
surprising people still pay for hosting their small, personal-ish websites.

~~~
wodenokoto
I guess I'm out of the loop. What cool things can I do on tumblr?

~~~
justboxing
For 1, you can use tumblr as your media CDN, i.e. post photos, videos and
other bandwidth heavy stuff, and use the tumblr API to access and display them
on your website / blog.

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dommmel
I find the concept of using a content editor on top of a SCM as a CMS very
intriguing. Thanks for sharing - Can anyone comment on how this compares to
[http://prose.io/](http://prose.io/) ?

~~~
kmfrk
It looks like a dialled-down version of Prose without image upload and more
elaborate metadata/YAML options.

Prose is beginning to pick up after it changed maintainers, but there are
still some hangups such as image upload that need to be fixed.

------
fiatjaf
Some time ago I wrote Coisas[1], which is somewhat like this, but with
Markdown and YAML Front Matter and not so much visual appeal as Hubpress.
Anyway, it is a nice thing, runs in your browser and publishes to GitHub
Pages. Small and modular codebase, you can fork and modify it easily.

[1]: [https://github.com/fiatjaf/coisas](https://github.com/fiatjaf/coisas)

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captn3m0
I've been working on similar things, so this is really cool. Although, as an
advanced jekyll user, all of my solutions revolve around GitHub Pages + Jekyll
combination, which I think is the best offering for static websites.

My solutions are called potion (discontinued) and Sazed (assembly.com/sazed)

~~~
killnine
Thank you kindly for introducing me to assembly.com.

------
msravi
Anyone else gets an authentication error when trying to login to the admin
console with github credentials?

~~~
Anthonny
Hi, i'm the creator of HubPress, to log in the app, you need to update your
config file :

[https://github.com/msravi/msravi.github.io/blob/master/hubpr...](https://github.com/msravi/msravi.github.io/blob/master/hubpress/config.json)

In your case :

{ "meta": { "username": "msravi", "repositoryName": "msravi.github.io",
"branch": "master" }, "theme": { "name": "Casper" } }

~~~
msravi
Duh, thanks! That was real stupid of me.

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alexro
Does it need my password to go through HubPress?

~~~
fiatjaf
No. I risked it and it only sends your password to GitHub.

~~~
Anthonny
That's right, your credentials are send to GitHub, then a personal token is
generate through the GitHub API, and its use for each futur call

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oddevan
Cool concept, but does it work with GitHub 2-factor authentication? (cursory
testing says no; anyone else get in?)

~~~
josephst18
I'm also unable to login with 2-factor auth. Console says a 401 error.

~~~
Anthonny
2-factor is not implemented in the preview, but i will work on it asap.

You can create a other github account and give him access to write on your
repository, it's a kind of workaround if you want to keep the 2-fact auth on
your main account

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phelm
Anyone else unable to use this as they have 2FA enabled on their github
account?

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TheHippo
I think a Youtube videos does not qualify to be titled as 'demo'.

~~~
Anthonny
You are right, it is more a preview than a demo, i'll change that. Thank you

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justizin
I'm reading this later, but upvote based solely on the title. ;)

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ahvetm
Logo looks like Hivestreaming.
[https://www.hivestreaming.com](https://www.hivestreaming.com)

~~~
captn3m0
Downvoted because HiveStreaming has nothing to do with this.

~~~
erikb
The logos look alike, why is that not "having nothing to do" with each other?

Btw. thanks for providing reasons instead of simply downvoting, though.

