:date: 2012-10-25 10:03

.. index:: tech, blogg, ruby, octopress

Octopress: Rake modifications
=============================

.. image:: /_images/images//gallery/2012/2012-placeholder/20120907-octopress-logo.png
   :alt: Octopress
   :align: right
   :scale: 50

And the tweaking continues. While now posting a while in `Octopress <http://octopress.org/>`__ and I'm more and more getting used to it, there are new potential improvements at the horizon.

Creating the posts is quite easy, but I still need to open the editor manually so that I can start editing. Why? In about 99% of all cases I'm creating the post and start editing is right away afterwards. There shouldn't be the need to explicitly open the post...

It seems that the command :program:`rake` was the key and honestly: I don't have a clue what it's doing...

But while playing with Ruby, Octopress and Rake I've learned that there is a file called :file:`Rakefile` in the main directory. There must be the key somewhere.

And indeed: in there is a section describing detailed what rake needs to do for creating a new post or a new page.

.. code:: bash

   # usage rake new_post[my-new-post] or rake new_post['my new post'] or rake new_post (defaults to "new-post")
   desc "Begin a new post in #{source_dir}/#{posts_dir}"
    task :new_post, :title, :open_in_editor do |t, args|
     raise "### You haven't set anything up yet. First run `rake install` to set up an Octopress theme." unless File.directory?(source_dir)
     mkdir_p "#{source_dir}/#{posts_dir}"
     args.with_defaults(:title => 'new-post', :open_in_editor => false)
     title = args.title
     filename = "#{source_dir}/#{posts_dir}/#{Time.now.strftime('%Y-%m-%d')}-#{title.to_url}.#{new_post_ext}"
     ....


OK, OK. This looks like magic to me as well. But with the help of a searching engine I figured quickly out that `I wasn't the first one having this problem <http://tech.tulentsev.com/2012/09/how-to-automatically-open-new-post-in-editor/>`__. Lucky me.

So I quickly altered the :file:`Rakefile` - file in the way that I've got now the optional parameter :command:`:open` which will trigger opening my editor of choice (I'm still using `Scribes <http://scribes.sourceforge.net/)>`__.

So I've patched the :file:`Rakefile`-file for creating new Posts and Pages, put in my editor, changed the file-extension from :file:`.markdown` to :file:`.mkd` and extended the yaml-metainformation as well (since I were already in that file):

.. code:: bash

   diff --git blogg/engine/Rakefile blogg/engine/Rakefile
   index 1b5ece6..e63fa8f 100644
   --- blogg/engine/Rakefile
   +++ blogg/engine/Rakefile
   @@ -22,8 +22,8 @@ deploy_dir      = "_deploy"   # deploy directory (for Github pages deployment)
    stash_dir       = "_stash"    # directory to stash posts for speedy generation
    posts_dir       = "_posts"    # directory for blog files
    themes_dir      = ".themes"   # directory for blog files
   -new_post_ext    = "markdown"  # default new post file extension when using the new_post task
   -new_page_ext    = "markdown"  # default new page file extension when using the new_page task
   +new_post_ext    = "mkd"  # default new post file extension when using the new_post task
   +new_page_ext    = "mkd"  # default new page file extension when using the new_page task
    server_port     = "4000"      # port for preview server eg. localhost:4000


   @@ -90,10 +90,10 @@ end

    # usage rake new_post[my-new-post] or rake new_post['my new post'] or rake new_post (defaults to "new-post")
    desc "Begin a new post in #{source_dir}/#{posts_dir}"
   -task :new_post, :title do |t, args|
   + task :new_post, :title, :open_in_editor do |t, args|
      raise "### You haven't set anything up yet. First run `rake install` to set up an Octopress theme." unless File.directory?(source_dir)
      mkdir_p "#{source_dir}/#{posts_dir}"
   -  args.with_defaults(:title => 'new-post')
   +  args.with_defaults(:title => 'new-post', :open_in_editor => false)
      title = args.title
      filename = "#{source_dir}/#{posts_dir}/#{Time.now.strftime('%Y-%m-%d')}-#{title.to_url}.#{new_post_ext}"
      if File.exist?(filename)
   @@ -107,15 +107,21 @@ task :new_post, :title do |t, args|
        post.puts "date: #{Time.now.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M')}"
        post.puts "comments: true"
        post.puts "categories: "
   +    post.puts "tags: "
        post.puts "---"
      end
   +  if args[:open_in_editor]
   +  	`scribes #{filename}`
   +# Alternative open
   +#  	`$EDITOR #{filename}`
   +  end
    end

    # usage rake new_page[my-new-page] or rake new_page[my-new-page.html] or rake new_page (defaults to "new-page.markdown")
    desc "Create a new page in #{source_dir}/(filename)/index.#{new_page_ext}"
   -task :new_page, :filename do |t, args|
   +task :new_page, :filename, :open_in_editor do |t, args|
      raise "### You haven't set anything up yet. First run `rake install` to set up an Octopress theme." unless File.directory?(source_dir)
   -  args.with_defaults(:filename => 'new-page')
   +  args.with_defaults(:filename => 'new-page', :open_in_editor => false)
      page_dir = [source_dir]
      if args.filename.downcase =~ /(^.+\/)?(.+)/
        filename, dot, extension = $2.rpartition('.').reject(&:empty?)         # Get filename and extension
   @@ -145,6 +151,9 @@ task :new_page, :filename do |t, args|
          page.puts "footer: true"
          page.puts "---"
        end
   +    if args[:open_in_editor]
   +  		`scribes #{file}`
   +  end
      else
        puts "Syntax error: #{args.filename} contains unsupported characters"
      end

And now starting a new post or page with

.. code:: bash

   rake new_post["Posttitle",:open]

magically will open my editor as well.

So: today's lesson learnt: :command:`rake` is basically doing for Ruby what :command:`make` is doing for Unix.