markdown-rambler
v0.0.23
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Yet another opinionated & powerful static site generator.
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Markdown Rambler
Yet another opinionated & powerful static site generator.
Turns directories with Markdown files into static websites.
- Based on the remark and rehype ecosystems.
- Powerful and extensible plugins.
- Zero-config with sane defaults to get started.
- Directory structure and file names determine the url's.
- Front Matter in Markdown to override defaults.
- Use a page
type
to enable different layouts and plugins. - Easily build layouts around the Markdown-based content and their
type
. - Optimize SEO with HTML documents including (OpenGraph) meta tags and structured content (
application/ld+json
). - Optimize performance by bundling CSS and JS assets.
- Mark drafts to exclude from lists (yet available with
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">
) - Includes SVGO to optimize SVGs assets.
- Writes sitemap.txt.
- Writes RSS feed.
- Writes search index (using MiniMatch).
- Features a
--watch
mode for auto re-generation.
Showcase
See webpro.nl and github.com/webpro/webpro.nl for an example website powered by Markdown Rambler.
Input
.
└── content
├── articles
│ ├── starting-a-blog.md
│ ├── writing-a-blogpost.md
│ └── yet-another-article
│ ├── index.md
│ └── image.webp
├── blog.md
└── index.md
Build Script
const rambler = new MarkdownRambler();
rambler.run();
Output
.
└── dist
├── articles
│ ├── starting-a-blog
│ │ └── index.html
│ ├── writing-a-blogpost
│ │ └── index.html
│ └── yet-another-article
│ ├── index.html
│ └── image.webp
├── blog
│ └── index.html
├── index.html
└── sitemap.txt
And all URLs in /sitemap.txt
:
https://example.org/
https://example.org/articles/starting-a-blog
https://example.org/articles/writing-a-blogpost
https://example.org/articles/yet-another-article
https://example.org/blog
Tests
See the tests to get an impression of the conversion from Markdown to HTML.
Options
Overview
File Structure & Output
| Option | Type | Default value | Description |
| --------------- | -------------------- | ----------------------- | ---------------------------------------- |
| contentFiles
| string \| string[]
| '**/*'
| Include Markdown and assets |
| contentDir
| string \| string[]
| ['content']
| Directories containing Markdown |
| ignorePattern
| string
| /^(\.\|node_modules)/
| File pattern(s) to ignore with --watch
|
| publicDir
| string
| 'public'
| Directory containing public assets |
| outputDir
| string
| 'dist'
| Output directory |
| sitemap
| boolean
| true
| Generates sitemap.txt
|
| feed
| Feed
| false
| Generates feed.xml
(RSS) |
| search
| Search
| false
| Generates MiniSearch index |
Flags
| Option | Type | Default value | Description |
| ------------------------------------ | --------- | ------------- | ---------------------------------------------- |
| verbose
| boolean
| false
| Logs more output about the process |
| watch
| boolean
| false
| Add watcher to re-process modified files |
| formatMarkdown
| boolean
| false
| Formats source Markdown files (using Prettier) |
Content
| Option | Type | Default value | Description |
| ----------------------- | ------------------------------- | ------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ |
| host
| string
| ''
| Host (e.g. 'https://example.org'
) |
| name
| string
| ''
| Website name |
| language
| string
| 'en'
| Website language (e.g. 'fr-BE'
) |
| manifest
| false \| string
| false
| Link to PWA manifest file |
| type
| TypeFn
| page
| Add type
to each page meta
data (e.g. 'article'
) |
| defaults
| Record<PageType, PageOptions>
| undefined
| Default meta data for each document |
Plugins
In order of exection:
| Option | Type | Default value | Description |
| --------------------------------------------- | --------------------- | --------------------------------- | -------------------------------------- |
| parsers
| Pluggable[]
| parsers
| Remark parsers |
| directives
| Record<string, any>
| undefined
| Directives to extend Markdown syntax |
| remarkPlugins
| Pluggable[]
| remarkPlugins
| Additional remark plugins |
| remarkRehypeOptions
| RemarkRehypeOptions
| {}
| Options for remark-rehype |
| rehypePlugins
| Pluggable[]
| rehypePlugins
| Additional rehype plugins |
| renderers
| Pluggable[]
| renderers
| Plugins to render (stringify) the hast |
- mdast: Markdown Abstract Syntax Tree
- hast: HyperText (HTML) AST
Feed
type Feed = {
pathname: string;
title: string;
description?: string;
author?: string;
tags?: string[];
filter?: (type: string, vFile: VFile) => boolean;
};
Search
type Search = {
outputDir?: string;
filter?: (type: string, vFile: VFile) => boolean;
};
Generates a MiniSearch index file to be used in your client. Here's a minimal example of a client script to use the search index:
(async () => {
await import('https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/dist/umd/index.min.js');
const searchIndex = await fetch('/_search/index.json').then(response => response.text());
const index = MiniSearch.loadJSON(searchIndex, { fields: ['title', 'content'] });
const searchBox = document.querySelector('input[type=search]');
const search = query => {
const results = index.search(query, { prefix: true, fuzzy: 0.3 });
console.log(results);
};
searchBox.addEventListener('input', event => {
search(event.target.value);
});
})();
The script(s) can be added to e.g. the public
folder and its path to the defaults.page.scripts
array.
Format Markdown
Set formatMarkdown: true
and the following plugins will be applied to the Markdown source files:
- remark-prettier to format the document
- remark-reference-links to turn
[text](url)
into[text][ref]
(and add definitions to the end) - order-links to order the definitions
Type
type TypeFn = (filename: string, matter: FrontMatter) => PageType;
Example:
{
type: filename => (filename.match(/^blog\//) ? 'article' : 'page');
}
Defaults
Sets default for each type of page. By default there's only the page
type. Example:
const options = {
defaults: {
page: {
layout: '[See "Layout" below]'
stylesheets: ['/css/stylesheet.css'],
author: {
name: 'Lars Kappert',
href: 'https://www.webpro.nl',
twitter: '@webprolific'
},
publisher: {
name: 'Lars Kappert',
href: 'https://www.webpro.nl',
logo: {
src: 'https://www.webpro.nl/img/logo-512x512.png'
}
},
icon: {
src: '/img/logo.svg'
},
logo: {
alt: 'Blog Logo',
src: '/img/logo.svg',
href: '/'
},
sameAs: ['https://github.com/webpro'],
layout: () => {},
prefetch: '/blog'
}
}
};
Any Front Matter in the Markdown augments or overrides these defaults.
---
published: 2022-03-05
modified: 2022-04-20
image: /articles/yet-another-article/image.webp
draft: true
---
# Yet Another Article
Lorem ipsum
The merged meta data will be used in the meta tags and structured content, and is available in layouts and directives.
- The
published
date adds<meta property="article:published_time" content="2022-03-05T00:00:00Z">
- The
author.name
adds<meta name="author" content="Lars Kappert">
- The
prefetch
value will add<link rel="prefetch" href="/blog">
See the PageOptions
type for details.
Layout
Each page type can have its own layout to wrap the content. Render ${node}
somewhere, and use all of the page's meta
data that was provided by Markdown Rambler, merged in with the provided default configuration:
import { html } from 'markdown-rambler';
export default (node, meta) => {
const { logo } = meta;
return html`
<header>
<a href="${logo.href}">
<img src="${logo.src}" alt="${logo.alt}" />
</a>
</header>
<main class=${meta.class}>${node}</main>
<footer>© 2022, Lars Kappert</footer>
`;
};
In this example, the class
field of the Front Matter of each Markdown file would be added to the <main>
element,
while the default.page.class
option could serve as a fallback class
value.
Plugins
Parsers
The default remark plugins:
These can be entirely replaced with different parsers
, or extended using remarkPlugins.
remark Plugins
Use remarkPlugins
to add remark plugins (to work with
the mdast before it is converted to hast).
remarkRehypeOptions
Use remarkRehypeOptions
to pass options to
remark-rehype.
rehype Plugins
The default rehype plugins:
- rehype-autolink-headings (only wraps h2-h6)
- rehype-slug
- rehype-document
- JSON-LD (structured content) in a {}.
Use rehypePlugins
to add rehype plugins (to work with
the hast after it is converted from mdast).
Renderers
Use the renderers
option to replace these default render plugins.
Directives
Directives are a powerful way to extend the Markdown syntax. The (implemented) proposal consists of inline (:
), leaf
(::
) and container (:::
) block directives.
::ASIDE
# Header
:::div{.wrapper}
Content with :abbr[HTML]{title="HyperText Markup Language"}
:::
The inline and container directives are readily available. To use a leaf block directive, pass an object with the
directive as a key, and a function that returns a hast
node. The function is much like an AST visitor function, and
adds the vFile
argument for convenience:
type DirectiveVisitor = (node: Element, index: number, parent: Parent, vFile: VFile) => Element;
const insertAside = (node, index, parent, vFile) => {
return h('aside', { class: 'custom' }, 'news');
};
const directives = {
ASIDE: insertAside
};
This will result in this HTML output:
<aside class="custom">news</aside>
<h1>Header</h1>
<div class="wrapper">Content with <abbr title="HyperText Markup Language">HTML</abbr></div>