heroku-softcover BETA

This start as heroku project but was not possible to setup there beacuse i need a filesystem so i switch to an amazon aws ec2 instance. It is still beta but should work it can be used to check out softcover projects from github and build the different document with the softcover build command.

The api methods that builds the documents like /api/build/:documenttype/:owner/:repo and /api/console/:documenttype/:owner/:repo perform first an git clone for the specified repo (owner + repo) or if a temporary version exists than it performs a git pull request. Than it start the softcover build:(documenttype) and return the result or the console output.

The following api examples build my softcover (book)[https://github.com/pussinboots/book]. It will see how i can manage that aws stuff (i'am familiar with but don't love it) and i will see if i could keep this instance running.

At the moment it is more a tool for me to learn nodejs better and to support myself by keep writing my first softcover book.

##TODO

public dns instead of ip (done)
use the http port instead of 9000 (done)
reboot and restart stuff
automated git pull
api/content not working when book file is not equals example.fileextension will be solved soon (done)

##Motivation

The travis ci build of my softcover project takes to long by installing all needed dependencies. So i guess there would be faster way. And so i started this project and it takes my seven hour to get a full working prototyp running on aws ec2. I had preffer heroku but need a local file system to keep things very easy and to concentrate on the main aspects. It takes now seconds to get a actual version of the book in each document types and not 10 minutes anymore.

##Contribution

I mentioned it's start as a tool for me to near realtime changes on my book but feel free to use it also or to fork and adapt this.

##Fast Contribution

Use the vagrant-git to get the vagrant box vagrant-devel-full with an complete environment ready to run heroku-softcover. Because it needs a complete texlive latex distribution and softcover has a lot of runtime dependencies.

Install vagrant-git

npm install -g vagrant-git

The command below check this project out and starts a vagrant virtualbox with Ubuntu 14.04

IDE sublime 3 or idea 13 (Ultimate without license)
softcover-nonstop fork that implements nonstopmode for building pdfs see Pull Request
all softcover dependencies
nodejs and npm

vgit --repo pussinboots/heroku-softcover

In a virtual machine terminal perform following to start the heroku softcover server. The command npm install can fail with an obscur error message that is caused by the symlink problem of virtualbox. For a detail explanation and solution look here .

cd /vagrant/project/heroku-softcover
npm install
./node_modules/mocha/bin/mocha --timeout 60000 --reporter spec
node server.js
wget http://localhost:9000/api/build/pdf/pussinboots/book/

Than you can open http://localhost:9000/api/build/html/pussinboots/book/ in the browser of your choice. So than you can start with your development of that project.