I was visualizing an approach similar to the "heredoc" table I used in
the script submitted earlier for the Canadian User Group sites. You
would only be modifying (or auto-generating with a script) the index
segment, /never modifying/ the JavaScript.
The various properties could be assigned in bar-delimited fields, with
the last field being the file name.
Also, using the approach I used in the HTML page that I submitted for
comments (iptables documentation proposal), the JavaScript there builds
the filename and pulls that up for viewing, without the need for a
nodeJS serving. I used that approach *specifically* to avoid the need
for a server, such that the full tree could be installed "locally" and
the full set of content be accessible without a server! 🙂
Eric
On 2026-08-11 17:14, Ron via linux wrote:
Eric Marceau via linux wrote on 2026-08-11 14:00:
But couldn't that be dealt with a single embedded Javascript indexing
mechanism to manage an fixed index page such that a drop-down menu
offered canned choices of categories and selectively displaying the
items that fell into those categories?
It would require building something in NodeJS so it can access the
file system, ideally. Don't want to have to update the JS every time a
file is added...
Similarly, you could make the logic in that single index HTML page
(pre-built, static) also handle a set of keywords associated with
each indexed item, and again for date. Don't know enough to say it
could also handle substring search (on a pre-built-index, again part
of that single HOME HTML page.
Just some thoughts,
That could probably be made to work.
But I'd probably advise copying and pasting the files' contents into,
for example, WordPress pages / posts, which would be searchable
without further effort.
Should be able to install WordPress via a simple `docker run ...`.
Thinking a bit more, Nextcloud is a favourite app of mine, and it has
built-in indexing, ability to access the files via WebDAV, and has
enough other features that it might appear to be over-kill initially,
but one quickly becomes dependent on self-hosted calendars, contacts,
images management (including auto-backup from mobile devices), etc.
Simply upload the files, no copy/paste required.
I'm surprised to find myself recently doing quite a bit of spreadsheet
editing inside my browser on Nextcloud-hosted files instead of loading
them up in LibreOffice over WebDAV.
Nextcloud is basically most of what something like Google provides,
but entirely self-hosted.
(Whirlwind is now a gale...)