The Grinnell College Digital Library Application Developer's Blog
Call it The GCDLADB if you like.
Updating Rootstalk - August 2023 10 min read Aug 15, 2023 | Updated: Sep 13, 2023 13:58
In this document I will attempt to capture the ordered steps required to publish a new “issue” of Rootstalk in it’s newest environment. The development of this blog post, and modifications to the https://github.com/Digital-Grinnell/rootstalk-issue-workflow repo, took place on my personal Mac Mini while simultaneous work on Rootstalk was completed in the ~/GitHub/npm-rootstalk AND ~/GitHub/rootstalk-issue-workflow* local repositories on my Grinnell College MacBook Pro. The two machines shared a single keyboard and mouse, plus copy/paste capabilities, via Universal Control. *Note that work in ~/GitHub/roostalk-issue-workflow must be completed on my GC-issued MacBook Pro as access to InDesign is only available on that college-owned machine. ...
NPM to Rule Them All 1 min read May 30, 2023
NPM for the Win, EVERYWHERE My first experiences with the EVERYWHERE component of this subject involved my personal blog and then Rootstalk. So, I’m not going to elaborate on this here, I’ll just provide a link to specifics documented in my personal blog: https://blog.summittdweller.com/wrap-everything-in-npm/ That’s all folks… use the Force links, Luke! ...
A Pagefind Problem? 3 min read May 10, 2023 | Updated: Jun 26, 2023 10:04
Not Just a Pagefind Issue Take note of the question mark at the end of the title, otherwise it could be somewhat misleading. This is not really a problem with Pagefind or Hugo, but one with cloud deployment of static apps, particularly as an Azure Static Web App or DigitalOcean static site. The Nutshell As you may know from post 143, I have successfully installed and configured Pagefind in Rootstalk, but thus far it only works locally. When I try to deploy Pagefind to the cloud, specifically as an Azure Static Web App, I can’t make it work because there’s no apparent way to invoke the necessary npx pagefind. ...
Significant Rootstalk Retooling 3 min read May 8, 2023
Critical Info The changes outlined in this post introduce a new theme, Lightbi, for Rootstalk, as well as a new project repository and dev deployment of the site as an Azure Static Web App. Those critical details are: Project Repository - https://github.com/Digital-Grinnell/rootstalk-with-lightbi. This new repo effectively replaces https://github.com/Digital-Grinnell/rootstalk which is being archived. Development Deployment - https://victorious-ground-0e1427110.3.azurestaticapps.net/ is the new deployment from the main branch of https://github.com/Digital-Grinnell/rootstalk-with-lightbi. Also… To reduce costs I’ve already eliminated the old deployment of the old main branch to https://icy-tree-020380010. ...
Rootstalk Updates 2 min read Mar 17, 2023
Concerning DigitalOcean I took steps yesterday to push an update of Rootstalk to our production “starter” project on DigitalOcean (DO), and my intent was to make this the last such deployment on DO. I had been thinking for sometime about moving Rootstalk production to Azure App Service where Rootstalk is currently developed. However, after moving my “personal” digital@Grinnell.edu Azure account to “pay-as-you-go” status, the projected monthly cost of services shot up from less than $1/month (mostly for object storage) to something closer to $10 or $15/month. ...
Gating My Content & More - Parts 3 and 4 7 min read Feb 18, 2023 | Updated: Mar 23, 2023 17:28
See Gating My Content & More - Parts 1 and 2 for prerequsite and background info. Introducing Wieting Content Part 3 of this process, the introduction of Wieting Theatre Guild content, is described in the project repo’s README.md file. Since the project is in a private repo I’ll include the pertinent parts here from this gist. Part 4 - Protecting Pages with StatiCrypt CLI + More Let’s jump in with StatiCrypt CLI. The following experience is from the README.md file in my https://github. ...
Adding a Custom 404 Page in Hugo 7 min read Feb 16, 2023 | Updated: Feb 21, 2023 10:39
The task du jour is to begin, and perhaps complete, the process of adding a custom 404 page to Rootstalk. Thus far I’ve found a couple of promising resources to guide the effort: Custom 404 Page Custom 404 pages in Hugo done right In particular, I’m focusing on “Option 2” in the “…done right” document, and the “Azure Static Web App” portion of the first document. Need a New Azure API Key? Early in this journey I found that I could not deploy changes to https://thankful-flower-0a2308810. ...
Gating My Content & More - Parts 1 and 2 9 min read Feb 6, 2023 | Updated: Feb 9, 2023 11:44
A Blended Approach It’s a new month, February 2023 that is, and this the first part of follow-up to last month’s post in my personal blog, namely Gating My Content. Now, rather than trying to “gate” some of the content in the Wieting Theatre website, I’m going to start a new site, with characteristics listed below, and include only the protected portion of the Wieting’s content. I call this a “blended” approach because it will, at least initially, leverage and blend guidance and elements from many of the resources I’ve captured at https://www. ...
Creating Better Documentation 7 min read Feb 4, 2023
We Need More Cow Bell Screen Capture! On a recent project I found myself following some development guidance provided in Deploying an 11ty Site to Azure Static Web Apps and I really like the work that squalrus did here because there’s a nice mix of screen capture images and descriptive text. I think my documentation, at least in the past, has been lacking in images. Time to fix that. Command - Shift - 5 On my Mac I frequently use the command - shift - 5 key sequence to launch dynamic – think movie, not image – screen capture. ...
Updating Digital.Grinnell (in Islandora) One More Time 7 min read Jan 19, 2023 | Updated: Jan 20, 2023 22:33
Digital.Grinnell’s Islandora lifespan will most likely come to an end this year, or at least in the early part 2024. So, I’m adopting a new, lean and mean process for updating it from this point forward. Basically the process will involve backing up the code that’s already in place, then using drush up to upgrade the Drupal modules and core if necessary. That process on January 19, 2023, went something like this… vSphere Snapshot In case of catastrophic failure I first elected to open my VPN then a window into VMware® vSphere. ...