I'm putting together a "local notes --> publishable knowledge-base site" workflow (it's a git-versioned Hugo site which sits in an iCloud folder. I'm using iA Writer as the main writing IDE. When ready to publish (on iPhone/iPad), I use Working Copy to commit & push the changes, and then GitLab Pages builds & publishes the site. It's a new setup for me - but works pretty well. Happy to share details if anyone is interested in the setup.
Questions / Issues
- How to Cross-link while in the writing flow (e.g. Notion-style linking). What I want to do, is to be able to quickly stub out [[Important Ideas]], and over time expand those entries into pages. But it seems I've got to figure out ways to translate [[ ]] topics into links when publishing out to Hugo. What's the best way to do this? I see there are Hugo Shortlinks - but those look like a pain to write out frequently...
- Renaming & "shaping" content over time - Sometimes I change the name of a page - I'd love to be able to update entires all over the site (I believe Obsidian keeps track of file names? Can iA Writer? Right now, when writing, I have no idea when I create a broken link. What's the latest on automatic link integrity checkers. Is there a tool which could fail to publish my site if it included a broken link?
- How would you recommend adding photos to content? I haven't figured out how to get /topic/foo/photo-of-foo.jpg to appear in /topic/foo/foo-notes when published? For example, in iA Writer, I'll import an image, it seems to save the image saved in the same directory as the text content. I can preview it in iA Writer and the image appears, but when I publish to Hugo, I'm guessing that Hugo is not referring to the image correctly?? Apologies that's vague - but the gyst is, "out of the box", it seems like I've got to "sort out how to embed images". I often will start a page on my phone - a few quick text notes, a few images... will publish it, and them come back a few days later to expand on it. Just want that "publish some text and pictures" flow to be easy.
- Somewhat related - What's the current "best practices" on where to put related files (e.g. photos, diagrams, videos, etc that accompany or are embedded in a document). I am considering setting up a dedicated media.example.com. I'd love to have a local folder of files, and have it atomatically sync to an S3 bucket or something, which serves / - What do you suggest for site search? I want it to feel as quick as Mac's Spotlight search, where it starts autocompleting suggestions. - Other stuff: Can anyone suggest their favorite "good out of the box" Hugo themes? I've got to make several microsites, and I'd like to arrive to a few themes which are a "safe default" Thank you for any advice. Very new to this, so trying to be productive without getting too bogged down.
I have considered using Obsidian Publish. My objective is to build an internal knowledge base: SOPs for a business. It won't be publicly visible. Obsidian Publish would require me to password protect the site, and that's an unacceptable addition of friction to day-to-day use.
Collaborative editing is the other problem to solve. In my world, "here's the repo on Github" draws blank stares. I have to use Google Docs or endless iterations of Word files.
Nobody will actually use an SOP in a Google Doc online, of course, and the trove of Word files on our server collects dust.
That's why a website (built using Docusaurus or similar) appears to be the best way to reduce friction and inertia. The path of least resistance should be the website full of SOPs, not "I remember how this works" or "I'll just re-invent the wheel."
I sympathize with your plight and I'm busily trudging along a parallel path.