nextein

A static site generator based in Next.js

Site | Documentation | Guides

What is it?

nextein is a wrapper around next.js that allows you to write static sites using markdown and react.

Requirements

NodeJS v10.x+ is required to run nextein commands.

Starter Kit

If you want to jump into a starter project check nextein-starter

Getting Started

There are a few steps you have to follow to get your site up and running with nextein

• Create a project:

  • mkdir my-site
  • cd my-site
  • npm init -y

• Install Dependencies

  • npm i nextein next react react-dom

• Add a next.config.js config file

  const { withNextein } = require('nextein/config')
  
  module.exports = withNextein({
  
  })
  

• Create pages/index.js

  import React from 'react'
  
  import { getPosts } from 'nextein/fetcher'
  import Content from 'nextein/content'
  
  export async function getStaticProps () {
    return {
      props: {
        posts: await getPosts()
      }
    }
  }
  
  export default function Index ({ posts }) {
    return (
      <section>
      {
        posts.map(post => <Content {...post} />)
      }
      </section>
    )
  })
  

• Create a markdown post entry under posts folder (posts/my-first-post.md)

  ---
  title: First Post
  category: post
  ---
  
  This is the first paragraph and it will be used as an excerpt when loaded in a `<Content excerpt />` tag.
  
  This paragraph should *not* appear in that list.
  

• Add npm scripts to run dev mode to your package.json

  "scripts": {
    "dev": "next"
  }

• Run the development server

  • npm run dev
  • open http://localhost:3000

• Add another npm script to your package.json to export the site

  "scripts": {
    "dev": "next",
    "export": "next build && next export"
  }

Documentation

fetcher

Use fetcher to retrieve the posts and data from your markdown files.

The getPostsFilterBy and getDataFilterBy methods in fetcher allows to pass filter functions. For instance, we can use inCategory filter to retrieve posts in a given category:

import { getPostsFilterBy } from 'nextein/fetcher'
import { inCategory } from 'nextein/filters'

//...
const blog = await getPostsFilterBy(InCategory('blog'))

The getData and getDataFilterBy will retrieve only the metadata generated for entries instead of the entire post.

The fetcher method is a convenient way to define a filter and then use the getPosts and getData with a filter applied.

import fetcher from 'nextein/fetcher'
import { inCategory } from 'nextein/filters'

//...
const { getPosts } = fetcher(InCategory('blog'))


//...
const blog = await getPosts()

You can use Dynamic Routes and static generator functions (getStaticProps and getStaticPaths) with fetcher methods.

Example for a [name].js dynamic route

import fetcher from 'nextein/fetcher'

const { getData, getPost } = fetcher(/* filter */)

export async function getStaticPaths () {
  const data = await getData()
  return {
    paths: data.map(({ name }) => ({ params: { name } })),
    fallback: false
  }
}

export async function getStaticProps ({ params }) {
  const post = await getPost(params)
  return { props: { post } }
}

export default function Post ({ post }) {
  //...
}

Example for a [[...name]].js dynamic route:

import fetcher from 'nextein/fetcher'
import { inCategory } from 'nextein/filters'

const { getData, getPosts, getPost } = fetcher(inCategory('guides'))

export async function getStaticPaths () {
  const data = await getData()
  return {
    paths: [{ params: { name: [] } },
      ...data.map(({ name }) => ({ params: { name: [name] } }))
    ],
    fallback: false
  }
}

export async function getStaticProps ({ params }) {
  const posts = await getPosts()
  const post = await getPost(params) // This can be null if not matching `...name`
  return { props: { posts, post } }
}

export default function Guides ({ posts, post }) {
  //...
}

inCategory(category, options)

Filter function to be applied to posts to retrieve posts in a given category.

• category: {String} The category to filter results.
• options : {Object} Optional
  • includeSubCategories: Boolean true to include posts in sub categories. Default: false

Categories are resolved by the folder structure by default. This means that a post located at posts/categoryA/subOne will have a category categoryA/subOne unless you specify the category name in frontmatter.

import { getPosts } from 'nextein/fetcher'
import { inCategory } from 'nextein/filters'

//...

const posts = await getPosts()
const homePosts = posts.filter(inCategory('home'))
  

If you want to retrieve all posts under a certain category, let's say categoryA which will include all those under subOne, use the options includeSubCategories: true.

import { inCategory } from 'nextein/filters'

const categoryAPosts = posts
  .filter(inCategory('categoryA', { includeSubCategories: true }))

Content

Component to render a post object. This component receives the content from the post as a property. Use the excerpt property to only render the first paragraph (this is useful when rendering a list of posts).

• content: {Object} Markdown content in HAST format to be render. This is provided by post.content
• excerpt: {Boolean} true to only render the first paragraph. Optional. Default: false
• renderers: {Object} A set of custom renderers for Markdown elements with the form of [tagName]: renderer.
• component: {String|React.Component} The component used for the root node.

import Content from 'nextein/content'

//...

export default function PostPage ({ post }) {
  return <Content {...post} />
} 

Using renderers to change/style the <p> tag

const Paragraph = ({ children }) => (<p style={{padding:10, background: 'silver'}}> { children } </p> )

// Then in your render method ...

  <Content
    {...post} 
    renderers={{
      p: Paragraph 
    }}
  />

post

• __id is the unique identifier generated by nextein.
• data is the frontmatter object containig the post meta information (title, page, category, etc)
  • data.category is the post's category. When not specified, if the post is inside a folder, the directory structure under posts will be used.
  • data.date: JSON date from frontmatter's date or date in file name or file creation date
• content is representation of post content (generally in HAST format) created by the build plugin for a given mimeType.

{ data, content } = post

frontmatter

There are only a few defined properties in the frontmatter metadata that is used by nextein

---
category: categoryOne
date: 2017-06-23

---

Post Content...

• category: the category name (optional)
• date: date string in YYYY-MM-DD format. Used to sort posts list. (optional)
• published: Set to false to remove this post from entries.
• name: Read Only The post file name. Date is removed from name if present.

withNextein

A wrapper configuration function to be applied into the next.config.js. It provides a way to add your own next.js config along with nextein internal next.js config.

next.config.js

const { withNextein } = require('nextein/config')

module.exports = withNextein({
  // Your own next.js config here
})

Plugins

You can also define nextein plugins using the withNextein configuration:

const { withNextein } = require('nextein/config')

module.exports = withNextein({
  nextein: {
    plugins: [
      //your nextein plugins here
    ]
  }
  // Your own next.js config here
})

The nextein.plugins configuration accepts an array of plugins with the following formats:

• [name]: Just a string to define the plugin.
• [name, options]: A string to define the plugin and a plugins options object.
• { name, id, options }: A plugin object. The name field is required. All previous definitoins are transformed into this format. The id is optional, when provided allows multiple instances of the same plugin.

The plugin name should be a pre-installed plugin (nextein-plugin-markdown) , or a local file (./myplugins/my-awesome-plugin)

Default Plugins

The default configuration includes:

plugins: [
  ['nextein-plugin-source-fs', { path: 'posts', data: { page: 'post' } }],
  'nextein-plugin-markdown',
  'nextein-plugin-filter-unpublished'
]

nextein-plugin-source-fs

Read files from file system.

Options:

• path: Path to read files from.
• data: Default data to be passed as extra for each entry. Default to {}
• includes: Default to **/*.*.
• ignore: A set of ignored files. The default list includes:

  '**/.DS_Store',
  '**/.gitignore',
  '**/.npmignore',
  '**/.babelrc',
  '**/node_modules',
  '**/yarn.lock',
  '**/package-lock.json'

nextein-plugin-markdown

Render markdown files.

Options:

• raw: Default to true. Make this false to not add the raw content in the post object.
• position: Default to false. Make this true to add the position info to post content HAST.
• rehype: Default to []. Add a set of plugins for rehype
• remark: Default to []. Add a set of plugins for remark

nextein-plugin-filter-unpublished

Filter posts by using a property to prevent draft / unpublished entries to be displayed.

Options:

• field: Default to'published'. Will check if a field is present in post data and filter if set to false.

Writing Plugins

You can write your own plugins. There are basically 2 different types (source and transforms). Source plugins will be called to generate the posts entries and then the transform plugins will receive those entries and can modify, filter, append, or transform in anyway the posts list.

See plugins & lifecyle design document.