Notes on Hosting a Static Website in an S3 Bucket
Table of Contents
1 Overview
Somehow, I got myself set up with an S3 bucket on Amazon's AWS and then forgot how I did it. Typical.
(See aws-s3-powershell-and-cli.org for tips on mucking about with S3 buckets.)
2 Publish all .org files from emacs
Emacs org-mode has its own "publish this hierarchy" function. Here's how to invoke it.
2.1 Declare current file as part of project
If you're in a file that should be part of the project but isn't…
Well, actually, it should be, if you're in the right directory. org-projects.el (which you need to eval) defines the project, and if you look at the base directory, that's where you should be. Or change the base-directory definition.
2.2 Publish
If you're in the right directory (i.e., your current org file is in the right directory) then the org-mode publish op should proceed properly.
(Then push generated html to S3, Push exported html to S3.)
3 Push exported html to S3
As described in basic operations.
4 Static vs. dynamic web site
A true wiki is better, because I can simply establish links between topics with just a WikiWord (for the right wiki software).
However, the wiki I chose (https://jspwiki.apache.org/, deployed at http://web.how-hard-can-it-be.com/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Main) is a bit buggy at the version I installed, so it crashes and acts goofy. It shouldn't, of course, and it's fixable, of course, but until I get around to installing a later version or otherwise debugging the problem, it's a pain.
Plus, it doesn't handle org-mode files (that's on my dream list of things to code up).
So, it's easier for me to write big, long org-mode files. Not the approach I'd prefer, but I already do it (it's my preferred note-taking format), so, here we are. I'd love to write the same big org-mode files and simply drop them on the wiki, but I'm not there yet, so… static web site.