Website update: Quarto migration, HugoBlox links, and GitHub Pages at the apex domain

A practical migration and deployment update

Published

April 10, 2026

I have just updated my website stack and wanted to document what changed and why. The short version is that I looked at migration options from Wowchemy, moved the site to Quarto, and improved how project pages are published under robinlovelace.net.

Looking back over recent commits in this repo, the practical work included switching to native GitHub Pages deploys, fixing event content and front matter, and consolidating the Quarto-based structure. I also wanted to write this up because the ecosystem has shifted in a way that can be confusing if you have not looked recently.

Looking at migration options: Wowchemy and HugoBlox

I explored options including migrating from Wowchemy to HugoBlox. If you search for Wowchemy on GitHub today, there are no public repositories under github.com/wowchemy. The project activity has moved under the HugoBlox organisation: github.com/HugoBlox.

So one path was to stay in the Hugo ecosystem and migrate templates and content there. The other path was to simplify and move to Quarto for content-first publishing and easier long-term maintenance. I went with Quarto.

Converting content

A key tool in this process was academic-file-converter. It did an excellent job of converting legacy Academic/Wowchemy-style content into formats that are much easier to work with in a modern Quarto workflow.

For anyone sitting on years of posts, events, and publication metadata, this is the kind of utility that turns a risky migration into a manageable one.

Another useful piece of the Quarto ecosystem is the Academicons extension workflow documented here: https://rmflight.github.io/posts/2022-12-03-using-academicons-in-your-quarto-blog/. Academicons are great for academic profile links (ORCID, Google Scholar and similar), but the experience is still more extension-oriented and less integrated than the tightly packaged academic site features available in HugoBlox. That is one reason I think Quarto could benefit from more high-level, Wowchemy/HugoBlox-style extensions for academic websites.

Legacy site archive

The old version of my site remains online here:

That gives a stable reference point while the new stack evolves.

Domain and GitHub Pages setup

With help from Jakub Nowosad, I configured my domain so GitHub Pages can serve from the apex domain setup. The practical result is that repositories with gh-pages outputs appear automatically under robinlovelace.net.

For example:

The old GitHub-hosted URL now redirects, so links continue to work while the canonical home is on robinlovelace.net.

Questions for next improvements

I would appreciate feedback on what to prioritise next. A few specific questions:

  1. Which area should I improve first: publications pages, project pages, or events/talks pages?
  2. Do you prefer a minimal homepage or one with more featured content blocks?
  3. Should I invest in a Quarto extension specifically for publication handling to get closer to the HugoBlox experience?
  4. Are there old URLs (besides /rs5c/) that should get explicit redirect checks?