Pockyll

Pockyll is a python tool to create Jekyll linkposts from your pocket collections because automated linkpost updates are like death sticks.

"You wanna buy some death sticks?"
"You don't want to sell me death sticks."
"I don't wanna sell you death sticks."
"You want to go home an rethink your life."
"I want to go home and rethink my life."
-- Elan Sleazebaggano & Obi-Wan Kenobi

Features

• Pocket item/bookmark syncing that converts your saved & tagged pocket items into linkposts that merge seamlessly with standard Jekyll posts
• Linkpost management fully compatible with tools like e.g. octopress
• Incremental update support
• Tag-specific syncing
• Pocket OAuth authentication

Installation

Concept

Using pockyll to manage pocket bookmarks requires two pieces: the pockyll executable (which pulls your pocket bookmarks into your Jekyll site) and changes to your site setup (in order to enable Jekyll to deal with linkposts properly).

Installing pockyll

Either get the package from PyPi

$ pip install pockyll

or clone the repo and install manually

$ git clone https://github.com/mkirchner/pockyll.git
$ cd pockyll
$ python setup.py install

Pockyll setup

1. Login into pocket, create a new application that has retrieve permissions.

2. Switch into your Jekyll site directory

3. Generate a a dummy config file _pockyll.yml. This can be accomplished using

    $ pockyll init
   

4. In _pockyll.yml enter the pocket_consumer_key created in step 1. Edit other fields as required.

5. Authenticate the pockyll app against the pocket API

    $ pockyll auth 
   

   This will open a browser window and ask for pocket authentication.

Site setup

By default, pockyll will define a variable type with the value reference in every linkpost. It will also and include the target link in the ref variable inside the YAML post header:

---
title: 'Clojure, The Good Parts'
date: 2016-04-19T23:05:26
type: 'reference'
ref: https://rasterize.io/blog/clojure-the-good-parts.html
---

Writing code that differentiates between normal and linkposts is therefore straightforward. You can simply use the post type as an indicator. Here is an example for a root directory index.html file that inserts the link to the post for every normal post and the link to the reference for every linkpost:

<div id="home">
  <ul id="blog-posts" class="posts fa-ul">
    {% for post in site.posts %}
      {% if post.type == "reference" %}
      <li><i class="fa-li fa fa-bookmark-o"></i>
          <a href="{{ post.ref }}">{{ post.title }}</a> <!-- HERE -->
          <span>{{ post.date | date_to_string }}</span></li>
      {% else %}
      <li><i class="fa-li fa fa-pencil-square"></i>
          <a href="{{ post.url }}">{{ post.title }}</a> <!-- HERE -->
          <span>{{ post.date | date_to_string }}</span></li>
      {% endif %}
    {% endfor %}
  </ul>
</div>

For normal posts, the link points to post.url. If the post is a linkpost, the link points to post.ref, thus enabling direct external linking.

Syncing Jekyll linkposts with Pocket

Once you have your site configured, it is time to sync your pocket bookmarks.

1. pockyll sync (one-way sync of all new posts tagged with any of pocket_sync_tags)
2. jekyll build
3. Optional: jekyll serve and marvel at the linkposts on your local server at http://localhost:4000.

Examples

mk@kowalski:~/src/mysite$ pockyll sync

Requesting new items from Pocket API...
Syncing 2 items.
Linking to POSTs:  [u'3 Reasons AWS Lambda Is Not Ready for ...', u'https://www.datawire.io/...', u'129676xxxx']
Linking to POSTs:  [u'Build a Python Microservice with ...', u'http://www.giantflyingsaucer.com/...', u'116281xxxx']
Done (2 posts/0 drafts/0 skipped).

mk@kowalski:~/src/mysite$

Pockyll automatically detects items that lack a title, an URI or an ID. If ID or URI are not present, pockyll skips the item. It the item lacks a title, pockyll will assign an empty string and place the item into the linkpost_draft_dir folder (defaults to _drafts/linkposts/) where you can review the link and edit the title. This allows for a more robust and seamless sync/deploy workflow.

Customization

Pockyll is configured using a _pockyll.yml configuration file located in your Jekyll base directory. After successful OAuth authentication, the file contains your secret Pocket access token. Hence, please make sure to include the pockyll configuration into your .gitignore file!

Configuration file

The overall configuration file structure looks like this:

pocket_consumer_key: ***secret***
pocket_access_token: ***secret***
pocket_redirect_uri: 'https://getpocket.com/a/'
pocket_sync_tags: ['blog']
pocket_since: 12326342
linkpost_post_dir: '_posts/linkposts'
linkpost_draft_dir: '_drafts/linkposts'

You must make sure that all directories mentioned in the configuration file (a) exist; and (b) are writeable.

Options

• pocket_consumer_key: this is the consumer key you obtain from the pocket developer API.
• pocket_access_token: the access token. Pockyll automatically stores the token in the configuration file after the first successful OAuth authentication event.
• pocket_redirect_uri: the location to which your are redirected after successful authentication (this can be anything).
• pocket_sync_tags: a list of pocket tags that should be synced to Jekyll.
• pocket_since: pocket timestamp that marks the last sync. Automatically updated by pockyll.
• linkpost_post_dir: the directory where linkposts are synced to unless they meet some error condition (currently: lacking a title). If you want to review your linkposts before publishing, set this to a _draft directory (may be the same as linkpost_draft_dir).
• linkpost_draft_dir: the directory where incomplete linkposts are synced to for review.

License

MIT.

Contact

Feel free to open issues if you run into trouble or have suggestions. Pull Requests always welcome.