Emacs updates to support new hugo-powered blog

Gordon Tillman

This has been an interesting day. After getting the updates to the blog repo all updated and working well, I wanted to also update my Emacs configuration to make it a smoother experience to add new posts.

So two main changes were required. The majority is in this one file, located in my `$HOME/.emacs.d/lisp` directory:

init-hugo.el

;;; init-hugo.el --- Blogging helpers for Hugo/ox-hugo  -*- lexical-binding: t; -*-
;; Author: Gordon Owen Tillman <got@example.com>
;; Namespace: got/
;; Summary: Create date-prefixed Hugo posts with optional tag prompting

;;; Commentary:
;; This file provides a helper function to create a new blog post in
;; `got/blog-directory`, using the ox-hugo front-matter conventions.
;; All functions are namespaced with `got/` (Gordon Owen Tillman).

;;; Code:

(require 'subr-x)  ;; for string-join

(defcustom got/blog-directory
  "~/Projects/g/gordyt.github.io/source/blog/"
  "Directory where blog posts are stored."
  :type 'string
  :group 'got)

(defun got--collect-existing-tags ()
  "Collect all unique tags from existing blog posts."
  (let ((tags '()))
    (dolist (file (directory-files got/blog-directory t "\.org$"))
      (with-temp-buffer
        (insert-file-contents file)
        (goto-char (point-min))
        (when (re-search-forward "^#\\+HUGO_TAGS:\\s-*\\(.*\\)" nil t)
          (let ((line-tags (split-string (match-string 1) "[ ,]+" t)))
            (setq tags (append tags line-tags))))))
    (delete-dups tags)))

(defun got/new-blog-post (title)
  "Create a new org-mode blog post in `got/blog-directory` with TITLE.
Prompts for existing tags (with the option to add new ones)."
  (interactive "sPost Title: ")
  (let* ((date (format-time-string "%Y-%m-%d"))
         (slug (replace-regexp-in-string
                "[^a-z0-9-]" ""
                (replace-regexp-in-string
                 " " "-" (downcase title))))
         (filename (expand-file-name (format "%s-%s.org" date slug) got/blog-directory))
         (existing-tags (got--collect-existing-tags))
         (chosen-tags
          (completing-read-multiple
           "Select tags (or type new ones, space-separated): "
           existing-tags nil nil)))
    (find-file filename)
    (insert (format "#+TITLE: %s\n" title))
    (insert (format "#+DATE: %s\n" date))
    (insert "#+HUGO_BASE_DIR: ../hugo-site/\n")
    (insert "#+HUGO_SECTION: posts\n")
    (insert (format "#+HUGO_TAGS: %s\n"
                    (string-join chosen-tags " ")))
    (insert "#+HUGO_CATEGORIES: \n\n")
    (message "New post created: %s" filename)))

(provide 'init-hugo)

;;; init-hugo.el ends here

Then just a minor update in `init.el` to load it:

(require 'init-hugo)

;; --- Hugo (if enabled) ---
(use-package ox-hugo
  :if (and (boundp 'got/enable-hugo) got/enable-hugo)
  :after ox
  :ensure t)