xake

Xake

Xake is the build tool for Ximera. It is used to manage the conversion of TeX files into .html files, and the publication of the resulting .html files. You may be interested in some of the underlying design principles.

The easiest way to install xake is with a package manager.

The basic workflow is as follows.

1. Make some edits.
2. git add and git commit to commit your source TeX files to your repository.
3. xake bake compiles your TeX files into .html files.
4. xake frost creates a special git tag for the .html files.
5. xake serve pushes your TeX source and the special git tag to the Ximera server.

The xake bake step is smart enough to only recompile files which have changed. The xake frost step creates the "frosting" meaning a git tag pointing to a commit sitting on top of the repo's HEAD. The final xake serve is actually just a wrapper around git push which pushes the frosting to the server.

Using xake

First, if you don't already have a GPG key, create one. You can get started with gpg --gen-key and then following instructions such as https://help.github.com/articles/generating-a-new-gpg-key/.

To be permitted to make use the ximera.osu.edu server, you will need to have your GPG key trusted by the Ohio State team. Email [email protected] with a copy of your key and we'll sign it for you; alternatively, find someone else who has permission to use ximera.osu.edu and simply have them sign your key.

To share your signed public key with Ximera, use the command

gpg --keyserver hkps://ximera.osu.edu/ --send-key YOUR-GPG-KEY-ID

(You may need gnupg-curl installed.)

At that point, xake --key YOUR-GPG-KEY-ID name REPONAME will create the remote repository https://ximera.osu.edu/REPONAME.git and you will then be able to git push ximera master to store your work on ximera.osu.edu. The name of your repository should contain only alphanumeric characters for now.