TL;DR

I discovered serve_this.

From time to time it is useful to explore a directory tree through the browser, e.g. to make it accessible remotely. There are a lot of solutions do do this around, in a plethora of languages; I recently discovered serve_this.

The good thing is that it’s based on Mojolicious, which is a breeze to install, as long as the associated plugin for doing the fancy directory indexing Mojolicious::Plugin::Directory::Stylish.

Another Perl-based alternative is http_this, although these days I don’t usually fiddle with Plack, so it’s somehow more distant.

Why Perl, you might wonder, when there might be better tools to do this? Well, I’m not really after anything fancy, and I’m pretty sure there will be a Perl wherever I go, or that I can bring it there with little effort. So it’s really a no-brainer for me.

There are some sharp edges that can use some sanding, though. Asking for non-existent paths throws an exception, and the like; anyway, being some quick-and-dirty tool, I think it’s neat.

Cheers!