grunt-writer

Convert markdowns and rendering using handlebars, with some custom recipes

The plugin doesn't play alone. If you are going to make a static site from markdown documents, try to use the awesome yeoman generator: generator-pencil that have full power you need when dealing with a website.

Getting Started

This plugin requires Grunt ~0.4.0

If you haven't used Grunt before, be sure to check out the Getting Started guide, as it explains how to create a Gruntfile as well as install and use Grunt plugins. Once you're familiar with that process, you may install this plugin with this command:

npm install grunt-writer --save-dev

One the plugin has been installed, it may be enabled inside your Gruntfile with this line of JavaScript:

grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-writer');

The "writer" task

In your project's Gruntfile, add a section named writer to the data object passed into grunt.initConfig().

grunt.initConfig({
  writer: {
    your_target: {
      options: {
        // Target-specific options go here.
      },
      files: {
          // Specify the files you want to convert
      }
    }
  },
})

Example Config:

grunt.initConfig({
  writer: {
    all: {
      files: [{
        expand: true,
        src: "**/*.md",
        dest: "dist",
        ext: ".html",
        cwd: "src/contents"
      }],
      options: {
        markdownOptions: {
          gfm: true,
          sanitize: false,
          breaks: true,
          smartypants: true,
          highlight: "auto",
          langPrefix: "hjs-"
        }
      }
    }
  },
})

Options

All options are optional

writerOptions

Handlebar rendering options.

• writerOptions.datasource root for JSON data files. context.json will loaded into template context automatically.
• writerOptions.viewsource view template root
• writerOptions.partials root for view partials
• writerOptions.helpers root for view helpers

markdownOptions

Options passed directly to marked

context

A hash that stores local variables available in templates

documentOptions

Options used to configure Document class. These options will affect all document class.

documentTypes

Register custom docuemnt types

Convert flow

1. Scan all markdowns

• Grab meta data embbed in markdown
• Build the documents tree, so the builder have general view of the markdown collection

2. Run the converter

• Strip the meta section outside markdown documents
• Convert markdown to html
• Save the converted result to template context

3. Render the template

• Using Document class accroding to metadata field type (default to Document)
• Find the handlebar template according to metadata field template (defaults to article)
• Write out

Write a markdown

Markdown can have its own metadata

---
date: Tue May 13 2014 11:28:29 GMT+0800 (CST)
author: Robin
template: article
title: A Brand New Page
slug: a-brand-new-page
---
Awesome content

Hypen-sperated contents are formated in YAML. It won't exist in the final HTML docuemnts but avaiable in template rendering context as metadata object.

Special meta filed:

• title: Page title
• slug: page slug that used as part of url
• date: creation time
• template: template to render
• type: document class
• docOptions: option hash passed to document constructor

Document Class

Register a custom document class

In options of Gruntfile.js:

{
  "writer": {
    documentTypes: {
      "typeA": DocumentA,
      "typeB": DocumentB
    }
  }
}

DocumentA and DocumentB should be subclass of Docuemnt.

Sublcass Notes

write is the only method that matters.

Document itself that has many attributes that are helpful.

var Document = require("./document").init(grunt),
    assert = require("assert");
return Document.extend({
  write: function() {
    //TODO
  }
});

Attributes:

• templateContext
  • tree
  • docs
    • metadata
    • src
    • ref
  • filepath
  • reference
  • metadata
  • other data loaded in context.json
• file
  • dest
  • src
  • filename

tree and docs

tree is a document hierarchy tree:

{
  "@": doc1,
  folder1: {
    "@": doc2,
    "article1.md": doc3
  },
  folder2: {
    "@": doc3
  }
}

In the example above,

• doc1, doc2, doc3 are isntances of Document class.
• @ is alias to index.md

docs is a simple array that contains the Document instances that sorted by creation date of markdown underneath.

Release History

• 2014-5-13 0.1.0 First opensourced version
• 2014-5-13 0.1.1 Small fix to adapt to generator-pencil