Saving to local filesystem

[joshlk]

Hi,

Great project! I've been looking for something like this for a while. I would like to setup my own private site and add functionality so I can save and load markdown files to a local filesystem - in my own hackdmd fork (happy to merge if desired). Im a programmer but have not experience in node.js/javascript. How hard would this be? Could you please direct me to the right areas in the code for me to look at.

Thanks

[jackycute]

Hi, Thanks for loving this project!
node.js/javascript are not hard to learn but hard to be good.

Currently, all notes will store in database which is totally different from filesystem.
You can import and export markdown files, we have those features.
But you can't browse all your filesystem or markdown files in some kind of tree view right now.

Because we have to manage permission and user auth problems, the db is necessary.
But we can instead use sqlite to manage that and use filesystem to store notes.

Anyway, these will not be an easy work because these will need ORM the db which I'm working on.
And implement the filesystem tree view etc.

It's really great to hear that you want to help.
You can start from the server side will be easier.
https://github.com/hackmdio/hackmd/tree/master/lib

I might able to help after some other works and issues be done. 😄

[SISheogorath]

I'm not sure how usual and how needed this feature is.

It has a high potential to cause security issues (as always when you provide access to the server side filesystem) and I don't think that there are many users. But maybe I'm wrong, so what do you think?

[ccoenen]

(I am assuming you mean write/read from the server's disk, not from the client's disk. In case, I misunderstood, just skip my comment.)

Writing the notes out to the filesystem is not hard, In case you need pointers, there's a Pull-Request exporting to git: Pull Request #303 / the line starting the full export to disk. Importing might not be as easy, I'm not sure if you need to satisfy any other constraints other than "write to notes table".

To be quite honest, I'm also not yet convinced this requirement is very common.

[markusressel]

I'm currently using MkDocs as a private Wiki.
MkDocs is a static site generator though and they have no intention to implement an online editor for it.
There are almost no alternatives to editing the files directly on the filesystem (there is Pendulum but it has very limited capabilities compared to HackMD).

MkDocs used by many people (over 5k stars on GitHub alone) including teams - which makes the concurrent editing capabilities of HackMD a very interesting thing to have.

I would also like to contribute if my free time allows me to do so.

[ccoenen]

Hi @markusressel, this issue is quite old, and I'm not really sure someone is going to pick it up any time soon. But more to your suggestion: I don't yet fully understand the proposal. I was looking at MkDocs, and it looks like a very similar project, how would the two be combined (if that is, what you're suggesting)?

[markusressel]

MkDocs generates a static website from Markdown files.
When files change it regenerates the website (if configured to do so).
So to edit the content of the website you have to use a file editor. When the markdown file is saved the website content is updated (after a regeneration step of MkDocs).

Because the website is usually hosted on a server it can be cumbersome to edit markdown files and appropriate editors have to be installed on the system you want to edit files from. Using HackMD as a "Webeditor" with many additional functionalities (like the mentioned concurrent editing) would allow to edit the web page content without the need for local tools and as a team without the need to worry about any concurrent editing issues.

[ccoenen]

In that case, take a look at my november comment, there's a ticket mentioned with a git export, and more specifically with the point where stuff is written to disk. I believe this code should still work, or at least be a very close template for a working version.

#90 (comment)

Then, all you'd need is a cronjob (or something else) that regenerates MkDocs from that directory.

[frankgerhardt]

@markusressel if you use it as a private wiki, why not use https://wiki.js.org/ For hosting you can still generate a static site.

[davidak]

I think for editing local files a native text editor with markdown preview extension would be best.

The Atom editor is not really native (based on web technology), but has a markdown preview integrated as core plugin. SublimeText probably also has a markdown preview plugin, but that editor is not open source.