Automatically org-export-html to a specific directory

Question

Every time I publish html files in org-mode, I clutter up my directory with them.

Is there a way to automatically export html files to a specific directory?

I've tried this solution: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9559753/emacs-org-mode-export-to-another-directory#9560534

However there is no org-export-publishing-directory in my emacs. I'm not sure why.

Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

A long time ago there was an export backend for org that defined org-export-publishing-directory, but it disappeared when the export code was rewritten. It turns out that the export functions can still do it with a little help. Here's how I set things up by advising an org function:

;; Add advice to let me set a different directory for the exported
;; files. Usually I do this with a directory-local variable for a
;; project, like this:
;; ((org-mode . ((my/org-export-dir "export-dir"))))

(defun my/set-org-export-directory (orig-fun extension
                                    &optional subtreep pub-dir)
  "Advice function to set export directory for `org-export-output-file-name'.
Set `my/org-export-dir' to specify the desired export directory."
  (let ((pub-dir (or pub-dir
                     (and (boundp 'my/org-export-dir)
                          my/org-export-dir))))
    (apply orig-fun extension subtreep pub-dir nil)))

(advice-add 'org-export-output-file-name
            :around #'my/set-org-export-directory)

Of course, this is fragile with respect to changes in the org-mode code!