Last post, I mentioned I was using Scriptogram as a quick way to get blogging and that I would review my requirements as I used it. I’ve now found that I can potentially use Scriptogram’s API to integrate my workflow into the blog.

Last post, I mentioned I was using Scriptogram as a quick way to get blogging and that I would review my requirements as I used it. I’ve now found that I can potentially use Scriptogram’s API to integrate my workflow into the blog.

Workflow

Although I don’t want to detail my ideas for a writing workflow in full here, I’ve felt it important for a while to have some kind of versioning and branching available when writing material that’s going to go into the public domain. This gives me the freedom to make rough notes when I have an idea, flesh them out into something that another person might understand, and later be able to trace progress from idea to full piece.

I already liked the idea of Scriptogram because it enables me to work directly with a file on Dropbox, which I already use to sync my work across machines.

API

Scriptogram also offers a very simple API that allows one to add and delete posts. Using the Curl package available for free to Bash users, it’s possible to write a shell script that takes a markdown file and puts its contents directly on the blog. In fact I did just that. You can access the resultant scripts here and here.

This then syncs back to the relevant Dropbox folder as well so you can still manage the published content from there.

What next?

I’m now keen to see if I can write a publishing script that will take pieces I deem to ready directly from a working directory (which can also be used a Git repository), prepare all the metadata needed, and put it onto the blog directly.