Shuji

Shuji is a Markdown to React JSX converter! It supports markdown including html, css, js, and even front-matter.

What is Shuji?

It was originally designed for being able to write blog files without the overhead of a framework like gatsby or jekyll. Templating frameworks used to be very beneficial, but often come with their own complexities and the biggest problem: you lose control over your build system. I got tired of waiting for bug-fixes, library updates, and having to work around their configurations. I just wanted an easy way to easily generate new blog articles without the overhead.

Shuji lets you:

• Convert Markdown .md files to .jsx files. It supports html, css, and js within markdown and front-matter support
• Design and organize your own folder structure however you want
• Configure your build system however you want. You can use webpack, parcel, rollup, or whichever you prefer
• Easily and automatically generate new articles/pages from markdown files
• Extract front-matter metadata into a react context

How it works

• .md files within a provided folder (default: /markdown) will be converted to .jsx files containing an exported react functional component and generated in the provided output folder (default: /jsxMarkdown).
• If front-matter is detected, it is converted to react helmet format by default or the alternative react context object format for improved customization.
  • See format examples below
  • If you don't want to have Shuji parse front-matter, you can use a plugin to process it before Shuji runs.
• Shuji can be run through the CLI, as a library, or integration with your build tool (webpack, parcel, etc.)
  • You can choose to run it against a folder or feed the .md string directly to Shuji.

Getting started - Installation

Option 1: Use the shuji CLI

Install Shuji

yarn add --dev shuji
or
npm install --dev shuji

Create a yarn/npm script in your package.json to run shuji

package.json:

{
    "scripts": {
        "buildjsx": "shuji -h"
    }
}

Alternatively, you can install shuji globally if you prefer not using yarn/npm scripts

Run shuji with the -h help command to see the full list of CLI options

Option 2: Directly import the package

Install Shuji

yarn add --dev shuji
or
npm install --dev shuji

Transform all .md files in a directory

Import and call the async method transformMarkdownFiles which takes an options object and returns a 0 upon success or a 1 if there's an error.

import { transformMarkdownFiles } from 'shuji'

const shujiOptions = {
    inputPath: 'blogArticles',
    outputPath: 'compiledArticles'
}

const isSuccessful = await transformMarkdownFiles(shujiOptions)

Transform a markdown string

Call the async method transformMarkdownFiles which takes an options object and returns a react component string upon success or an '' string if there's an error.

import { transformMarkdownString } from 'shuji'

const myMarkdownString = getMyString()

const shujiOptions = {
    inputPath: 'blogArticles',
    outputPath: 'compiledArticles'
}

const jsxString = await transformMarkdownString(myMarkdownString, shujiOptions)

Check out the properties of the options object.

Option 3: Use the Parcel plugin

Edit: Parcel plugin is currently unavailable

Install the parcel plugin

yarn add --dev parcel-plugin-shuji
or
npm install --dev parcel-plugin-shuji

Parcel will automatically look for .md files in the ./markdown folder and compile them into the ./jsxMarkdown folder.

You can configure several options by adding a shuji.config.json or .shujirc.json file in your root directory and parcel will automatically load it.

See options below

Option 4: Use the Webpack plugin

...coming soon~

Front Matter - How does it work in Shuji?

What is front matter?

Front matter itself is a convention borrowed from books describing the title, contents, etc. In code it represents the meta data around an article like title, date, author, description, etc.

Usage

Front matter can be written in YAML or JSON format at the beginning of each markdown file Here's an example format:

---
title: Hello World
date: 2013/7/13 20:46:25
---

"title": "Hello World",
"date": "2013/7/13 20:46:25"
;;;

See the front-matter example for the output

Examples

Basic Markdown Example

input: articles/simple.md

# Hello World

## test

This is a markdown test. Isn't markdown awesome?

### Reasons to use this

- It's awesome
- It's lightweight
- It doesn't replace your build pipeline.

output: jsxPages/simple.jsx

export const Simple = () => {

    return (
        <div className='simple'>
            <h1>Hello World</h1>
			<h2>test</h2>
			<p>This is a markdown test. Isn&#x27;t markdown awesome?</p>
			<h3>Reasons to use this</h3>
			<ul>
			<li>It&#x27;s awesome</li>
			<li>It&#x27;s lightweight</li>
			<li>It doesn&#x27;t replace your build pipeline.</li>
			</ul>
        </div>
    )
}

Example with front-matter

input: articles/frontmatterexample.md

---
date: "2021-01-01"
title: node with react and redux
slug: node-react-redux
description: How to node with react and redux
tags:
- node
- react
- redux
---

# Node with react redux

## test

This with a test with yaml front matter.
Node react stuffs

### Reasons to use this

- It's awesome
- It's lightweight
- It doesn't replace your build pipeline.

#### The end

output: jsxPages/frontmatterexample.jsx

import { Helmet } from 'react-helmet'

export const Frontmatterexample = () => {

    return (
        <div className='frontmatterexample'>
        	<Helmet>
				<meta name="date" content="2021-01-01" />
				<title>node with react and redux</title>
				<meta name="slug" content="node-react-redux" />
				<meta name="description" content="How to node with react and redux" />
				<meta name="tags" content="node,react,redux" />
			</Helmet>
            <h1>Node with react redux</h1>
			<h2>test</h2>
			<p>This with a test with yaml front matter.
			Node react stuffs</p>
			<h3>Reasons to use this</h3>
			<ul>
			<li>It&#x27;s awesome</li>
			<li>It&#x27;s lightweight</li>
			<li>It doesn&#x27;t replace your build pipeline.</li>
			</ul>
			<h4>The end</h4>
        </div>
    )
}

If you set frontMatterMode='reactHead' enabling the reactHead format, it will output your front-matter using a react context like this:

import { ReactHeadContext } from 'reactHead'

export const Frontmatterexample = () => {

	const [reactHead, setReactHead] = useContext('ReactHeadContext')

	setReactHead({
		...reactHead,
		date = '2021-01-01',
		title = 'node with react and redux',
		slug = 'node-react-redux',
		description = 'How to node with react and redux',
		tags = ['node','react','redux'],

	})

    return (
        <div className='frontmatterexample'>
        	<h1>Node with react redux</h1>
			<h2>test</h2>
			<p>This with a test with yaml front matter.
			Node react stuffs</p>
			<h3>Reasons to use this</h3>
			<ul>
			<li>It&#x27;s awesome</li>
			<li>It&#x27;s lightweight</li>
			<li>It doesn&#x27;t replace your build pipeline.</li>
			</ul>
			<h4>The end</h4>
        </div>
    )
}

Note: you will need to set up a custom module alias if your imported reactHead context is in another folder level. You can add this to your tsconfig.json or jsconfig.json

Config Options

By default, no options are required.

• inputPath (string, default: 'markdown')
  Target folder or file with .md files for Shuji to parse.
• outputPath (string, default: 'jsxMarkdown')
  Output destination folder to write the compiled .jsx files.
• frontMatterMode (string, default: reacthelmet)
  Toggle output style of front matter. true uses react helmet syntax. false will set react context values you have more control over. This is referred to as "reactHead"
• reactHeadContextName (string, default: 'ReactHeadContext')
  The reactHead context name in which any detected front-matter will be set through useContext('${reactContextName}')
• reactHeadContextVarName (string, default: 'reactHead')
  The name of the reactHead context object and set method assigned from useContext('${reactContextName}'). ex. const [${yourVar}, set${YourVar}].
  note: first letter will be automatically be lower case for the object and upper-cased for the set method
• deleteExistingOutputFolder (boolean, default: false)
  Delete existing content in the output folder (outputFolderPath) before writing compiled files
• logLevel (number, default: 2)
  Set the log level. 1=debug mode, 2=default, 3= no logs

Front matter options

• react-component-name (string)
  For setting the react component name. Useful if you want to name your component something different than the filename. Useful if your file names begin with a date. Example: filename: 2030-02-02-shuji-is-awesome.md, front matter:react-component-name:shujiIsAwesome output: const ShujiIsAwesome = ...
• title (string)
  For replacing the page title <title>{shuji}</title>
• description (string)
  Description for your post. <meta name="description" content="{Shuji is awesome!}">
• keywords (string)
  SEO Keywords for your post. <meta name="keywords" content="{[shuji, react, markdown]}">
• date (string)
  Published Date. No official html5 support tag, so placed in a meta tag <meta name="date" content="{2030-01-01}">
• tags (array)
  Tags to categorize your post. No official html5 support tag, so placed in a meta tag <meta name="tags" content="{[shuji, react, markdown]}">
• link (array)
  Permanent/canonical/pretty url for your post. Replaces <link rel='canonical' href='{https://github.com/ermish/shuji}' />
• your custom option (string)
  You can add any additional front matter and it will be placed a meta tag based on the name. <meta name="hello" content="{world}">

React Helmet Mode (frontMatterMode='reacthelmet'):

These front matter options will be added to <Helmet>{front matter options}</Helmet>

React Head Mode (frontMatterMode='reacthead'):

These front matter options will be added to a react context. This will not import react-helmet and will not set anything in the <head> section by default. This mode provides the ability to manage how you want to update the head.

Front matter disabled Mode (frontMatterMode='none'):

Front-matter will be ignored.

Future features

• Fix parcel plugin
• Webpack support
• Improve logging

License

MIT