Workfolio

With Workfolio, you can create a

• hosted RSS and JSON feed for your work
• well-designed overview of your work

(Or just a featured list of your work.)

The site will be available at github_username.github.io.

Technically, it will also be accessible through github_username.github.com, which will redirect to .io, so use whichever link you think looks better.

If you know your way around Jekyll, GitHub, or static pages, you’ll also know how to host this elsewhere.

Demo

As of this writing, you can check out the live version of this repo.

How-To

1. Create a GitHub user, if you don’t already have one. Here is the registration page.

   Make sure to choose a username that easily identifies you, eg

   • firstname|lastname
   • firstnameInitial|lastname

   as the username will be a part of the website URL.

2. Go to your e-mail settings and make sure you’ve checked the box “Keep my email address private”.

3. Create a repo named {{ github_username }}.github.io on GitHub.

4. Import the required code by going to

    https://import.github.com/{{ github_username }}/{{ github_username }}.github.io/import
   

   and entering

    https://github.com/ndarville/workfolio
   

5. Update links.yml, when you create new work you want to share.

   You can do this with Git or the browser interface at

    https://github.com/{{ github_username }}/{{ github_repo }}/edit/master/data/links.yml
   

6. Update your config in _config.yml as well with Git or the browser interface at

    https://github.com/{{ github_username }}/{{ github_repo }}/edit/master/data/_config.yml
   

   You only need to update the name and url fields under Required settings.

   However, I’ve built in support for archive since a big issue with workfolios is your older work disappearing. archive.is is great to make back up your work without too much effort. If no archive link is found, a query link for Internet Archive will be used instead—regardless of whether your article is archived. I also heartily endorse the Wayback Machine extension.

   I’ve decided to change the automatically generated archive link text to “(unarchived)” to annoy you into backing up your work and ensure people aren’t falsely lead to believe their work has been archived just because there’s an archive link.

   (I also backed up the other two example “non-archived” articles, just in case.)

   NB: If you are using a private repository for this project, and you don’t want people to see your links.yml file, you must also delete this line in _config.yml:

    data_dir: data
   

7. Go to the settings of your repo, github.com/{{ github_username }}/your_repo/settings under Options

8. Under GitHub Pages:

   • Under Source, click the drop-down and select “master branch” at the top.
   • Check Enforce HTTPS.
   • You can also set the custom domain here, which is handled by the CNAME file in your repo.

Your site should eventually be updated to reflect the changes with the feed available at

https://{{ github_username }}.github.io

Congrats on your new site!

Can I use a custom domain name?

You sure can, but this is for what you might call technical people.

I use it myself for some of my projects.

I can’t get it to work :(

You’re welcome to contact me about this as well. We’ll figure it out.

Will my site automatically be updated with new features?

Nope. You’ll basically have to follow the so-called commit history for updates that sound important to you and copy-paste them yourself.

It is unlikely that there’ll be significant updates, but it is possible that changes will be made to index.html and links.atom, and perhaps _config.yml.

Should this happen, and you really want to update your site, I recommend you just copy-paste the code to your current files and save the changes. I do not recommend you delete your site, re-create it, and then re-import this repo, as you will lose the information your entered in data/links.yml and _config.yml.

For this reason, it never hurts to have a backup of links.yml somewhere else, should you manage to pull what I just described.

Never underestimate your ability to do something obscenely dumb, especially when the hour’s late or alcohol is involved.

Can I set up automated tweets about new articles?

With IFTTT, yes.

1. Create an IFTTT user

2. Use this IFTTT recipe and replace the field Field URL

    https://ndarville.github.io/feed.atom
   

   with

    https://{{ github_username }}.github.io/links.atom
   

   Remember to change feed.atom to links.atom in the URL—not just the username.

3. Connect your Twitter account to IFTTT for the recipe to work.

You can change the recipe description, too, if you want, but it’s not required.

Be aware that IFTTT can take around one hour to react to triggers.

NB: Do keep your wits about you and fill your backlog of articles, before enabling this Twitter script, as you’ll subject your followers to a deluge of “new” RSS updates otherwise.

Boom. You’re now set to share your articles through both a website, an RSS feed, and now your Twitter account!

You can also use your RSS feed to trigger other events, be it with IFTTT channels or Slack integrations, or something else.

Related projects

• Goal Tracker
• Wishlist

Credits

• skeleton.css, the CSS framework for this project