Setup

Introduction

This page will highlight the build-script.el used to generate this website. This entire website is generated through org files using the command:

emacs -Q --script build-site.el

The script

The script is as follows, at the start I have commented out pieces of code (somewhat relevant to the script but never really used), followed by package management. Then there's the declaration of variables and functions and finally the org-publish-project-alist which handles nearly all of the project generation instructions.

;; Commented out things:

;; (defvar z-head
;;   "<link rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\" href=\"https://gongzhitaao.org/orgcss/org.css\" />
;; <link rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"/style.css\" />")

;; (setq org-html-validation-link nil
;;       org-html-head-include-scripts nil
;;       org-html-head-include-default-style nil
;;       org-html-head z-head)

;; (type-of (car '(rose violet daisy buttercup)))
;; (cadr (assoc "FILETAGS" (org-collect-keywords '("FILETAGS"))))

;; (let ((list '(("post1.org") ("post2.org"))))
;;   (mapconcat (lambda (entry)
;;                (format "- [[file:%s]]" (car entry)))
;;              list
;;              "\n"))



;;BEGIN:
;; Set the package installation directory so that packages aren't stored in the
;; ~/.emacs.d/elpa path.
(require 'package)
(setq package-user-dir (expand-file-name "./.packages"))
(setq package-archives '(("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/")
                         ("elpa" . "https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/")))

;; Initialize the package system
(package-initialize)
(unless package-archive-contents
  (package-refresh-contents))

;; Install dependencies
(package-install 'htmlize)

;; Load the publishing system
(require 'ox-publish)
(setq org-html-htmlize-output-type 'css)

(defvar z-preamble
  "<nav>
  <a href=\"/\">Home | </a>
  <a href=\"/posts/posts-list.html\">Posts | </a>
  <a href=\"/blogs/blogs-list.html\">Blogs | </a>
  <a href=\"/contact.html\">Contact</a>
</nav>
<div id=\"updated\">Updated: %C</div>"
)

(defvar z-postamble
  "<footer>
<div class=\"copyright-container\">
<div class=\"copyright\">
Copyright &copy; 2022-2025 Zaine Qayyum. All rights reserved unless otherwise noted.</div></div>
<div class=\"generated\">
Created with %c on <a href=\"https://www.archlinux.org/\">Arch</a> <a href=\"https://www.gnu.org\">GNU</a>/<a href=\"https://www.kernel.org/\">Linux</a>
</div>
</footer>")



(defun z/posts-sitemap (title list)
  "sitemap that lists post links as bullet points with dates and tags."
  (concat
   "#+TITLE: " title "\n"
   "#+OPTIONS: toc:nil num:nil \n\n"
   "* Posts:\n"
   (mapconcat
    (lambda (entry)
      (let* ((link (car entry))
             ;; extract relative file name from the link
             (filename (if (string-match "\\[\\[file:\\([^]]+\\)\\]" link)
                           (match-string 1 link)
                         link))
             (full-path (expand-file-name filename "~/master-folder/org_files/org_web/posts/"))
             (date-str "no date")
             (tags-str ""))
        ;; Get publish date
        (let ((date (org-publish-find-date full-path org-publish-project-alist)))
          (when date
            (setq date-str (format-time-string "%Y-%m-%d" date))))
        ;; Get FILETAGS from file buffer
        (when (file-exists-p full-path)
          (with-temp-buffer
            (insert-file-contents full-path)
            (org-mode)
            (let* ((tags (cadr (assoc "FILETAGS" (org-collect-keywords '("FILETAGS"))))))
              (when tags
                (setq tags-str (mapconcat (lambda (tag)
                                            (format "@@html:<span class=\"post-tag\">%s</span>@@" tag))
                                          (split-string tags ":" t)  ;; <- Splits by ":" and removes empty strings
                                          " "))))))
        ;; Final line output
        (format "- %s @@html:<span class=\"post-date\">%s</span>@@ %s" link date-str tags-str)))
    (cdr list)
    "\n")))


(defun z/blogs-sitemap (title list)
  "sitemap that lists blog links as bullet points with dates and tags."
  (concat
   "#+TITLE: " title "\n"
   "#+OPTIONS: toc:nil num:nil \n\n"
   "* Posts:\n"
   (mapconcat
    (lambda (entry)
      (let* ((link (car entry))
             ;; extract relative file name from the link
             (filename (if (string-match "\\[\\[file:\\([^]]+\\)\\]" link)
                           (match-string 1 link)
                         link))
             (full-path (expand-file-name filename "~/master-folder/org_files/org_web/blogs/"))
             (date-str "no date")
             (tags-str ""))
        ;; Get publish date
        (let ((date (org-publish-find-date full-path org-publish-project-alist)))
          (when date
            (setq date-str (format-time-string "%Y-%m-%d" date))))
        ;; Get FILETAGS from file buffer
        (when (file-exists-p full-path)
          (with-temp-buffer
            (insert-file-contents full-path)
            (org-mode)
            (let* ((tags (cadr (assoc "FILETAGS" (org-collect-keywords '("FILETAGS"))))))
              (when tags
                (setq tags-str (mapconcat (lambda (tag)
                                            (format "@@html:<span class=\"post-tag\">%s</span>@@" tag))
                                          (split-string tags ":" t)  ;; <- Splits by ":" and removes empty strings
                                          " "))))))
        ;; Final line output
        (format "- %s @@html:<span class=\"post-date\">%s</span>@@ %s" link date-str tags-str)))
    (cdr list)
    "\n")))


;; Define the publishing project
(setq org-publish-project-alist
      `(("org-notes"
         :recursive t
         :base-directory "~/master-folder/org_files/org_web/"
         :publishing-function org-html-publish-to-html
         :publishing-directory "~/master-folder/org_files/org_web/output"
         :with-author nil
         :with-creator t
         :with-toc t
         :base-extension "org"
         :section-numbers nil
         :time-stamp-file nil
         :html-preamble ,z-preamble
         :html-postamble ,z-postamble
         :html-head "
<link rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\" href=\"https://gongzhitaao.org/orgcss/org.css\" />
<link rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"style.css\" />
<script src=\"script.js\" defer></script>
"
        )
        ("org-posts"
         :base-directory "~/master-folder/org_files/org_web/posts"
         :base-extension "org"
         :publishing-directory "~/master-folder/org_files/org_web/output/posts/"
         :recursive t
         :base-extension "org"
         :publishing-function org-html-publish-to-html
         :with-author nil
         :with-creator nil
         :html-validation-link nil
         :with-toc t
         :section-numbers t
         :html-preamble ,z-preamble
         :html-postamble ,z-postamble
         :auto-sitemap t
         :sitemap-filename "posts-list.org"
         :sitemap-title "Posts List"
         :sitemap-style list
         :sitemap-function z/posts-sitemap
         :html-head "
<link rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\" href=\"https://gongzhitaao.org/orgcss/org.css\" />
<link rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"../style.css\" />
<script src=\"../script.js\" defer></script>
"
         )
        ("org-blogs"
         :base-directory "~/master-folder/org_files/org_web/blogs"
         :base-extension "org"
         :publishing-directory "~/master-folder/org_files/org_web/output/blogs/"
         :recursive t
         :base-extension "org"
         :publishing-function org-html-publish-to-html
         :with-author nil
         :with-creator nil
         :html-validation-link nil
         :with-toc t
         :section-numbers t
         :html-preamble ,z-preamble
         :html-postamble ,z-postamble
         :auto-sitemap t
         :sitemap-filename "blogs-list.org"
         :sitemap-title "Blogs List"
         :sitemap-style list
         :sitemap-function z/blogs-sitemap
         :html-head "
<link rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\" href=\"https://gongzhitaao.org/orgcss/org.css\" />
<link rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"../style.css\" />
<script src=\"../script.js\" defer></script>
"
         )


        ("org-assets"
         :base-directory "~/master-folder/org_files/org_web/assets/"
         :base-extension "css\\|js\\|png\\|jpg\\|gif\\|svg\\|pdf\\|woff\\|woff2\\|ttf"
         :publishing-directory "~/master-folder/org_files/org_web/output/assets/"
         :recursive t
         :publishing-function org-publish-attachment)
        ("org-static"
         :base-directory "~/master-folder/org_files/org_web/"
         :base-extension "css\\|js"
         :publishing-directory "~/master-folder/org_files/org_web/output"
         :recursive t
         :publishing-function org-publish-attachment)

        ("website"
         :components ("org-notes" "org-assets" "org-posts" "org-blogs" "org-static"))))

;; Delete the output before generating the new one
(delete-directory "~/master-folder/org_files/org_web/output/" t)
(message "Directory deleted")

;; Generate the site output
(org-publish-all t)

(message "Build complete!")

Publish Script

As the project is hosted on Github, I have created a small script that is able to push changes to the remote repository, which Cloudflare will automatically detect and rebuild the website:

#!/bin/bash

# Exit immediately if any command fails
set -e

# Define paths
ORG_PROJECT_NAME="website"
ORG_OUTPUT_DIR="$HOME/master-folder/org_files/org_web/output"

# commands used prior to having the `build-script.el`
# echo "Running org-publish..."
# emacs --batch \
#       --eval "(require 'org)" \
#       --eval "(require 'ox-publish)" \
#       --eval "(org-publish \"$ORG_PROJECT_NAME\" t)"

cd "$ORG_OUTPUT_DIR"

echo "HTML published to: $ORG_OUTPUT_DIR"

# Git commands
echo "Adding changes to Git..."
git add .

echo "Committing..."
git commit -m "Auto-publish on $(date)" || echo "Nothing to commit."

echo "Pushing to GitHub..."
git push origin main

echo "Done! Changes pushed and Cloudflare should rebuild the site."