Publish to a folder

What a folder is for

Sometimes the best way to move files is one you already trust. Selfish can publish into a folder on your device and keep it exactly in step with your site. What carries the folder onwards is up to you.

• A folder your web host’s app syncs. Some hosts and NAS boxes sync a local folder to your web space.
• iCloud Drive, Dropbox or a Syncthing share, with a server at the other end watching it.
• A staging copy. Build the site into a folder to look it over, or to upload it yourself with another tool.

In Site Settings → Publishing, set Publish Using to Folder, and choose Choose Folder….

It is per device

The settings screen shows where the folder is in words you would recognise, such as “iCloud Drive/…” or “On My iPhone/…”. Choose Another Folder… changes it, and Check Folder confirms Selfish can still write there.

What a publish does

• Copies in the files that changed.
• Removes the files your site no longer has.
• Removes nothing else in the folder. A hidden file, .selfish-manifest.json, records what Selfish put there, and only those files are ever removed. A file of your own with the same name as one of the site’s would be overwritten, apart from a robots.txt, favicon, touch icon or 404.html that was there first.

The first publish’s button reads Copy to Folder, and later ones Publish Changes. The screen finishes with “It’s in your folder.” There is no check that the site is live afterwards, because Selfish can’t know where the folder ends up.

If you want addresses without .html

Whatever finally serves the folder has to show a folder’s index.html at the folder’s address. Most web servers do.

Deleting the site

Deleting a site in Selfish forgets the folder and leaves it, and everything in it, exactly as it is.