Coppersmith NPM

CopperSmith

A simple static site builder using markdown

release npm downloads

Overview

CopperSmith is a very simple static site builder that uses markdown files, primarily built for myself to quickly roll out documentation (default theme).

Using simple commands, you can quickly scaffold your site leaving you to simply edit the content of your pages.

Once built, the site can be hosted anywhere static HTML content is supported, like GitHub Pages and Netlify. It's perfect for shared hosting and systems where you don't have account privileges.

Read documentation here

The structure of a site is laid out to be easy to maintain and looks like the following:

- [sourcePath]/pages/
    - _snippets
    - getting-started/
        - _snippets/
        - intro.md
    - root/
        - _snippets/
        - welcome.md
    - index.md

Apart from the home page ([sourcePath]/pages/index.md), all other pages are contained in folders / collections. The root collection will contain the root pages i.e. domain.com/page. Any other collections will contain the pages for sub-pages i.e. domain.com/collection/page.

CopperSmith applies a custom permalink pattern to files, and renames them so that they're nested properly for static sites (converting getting-started/intro.md into getting-started/intro/index.html)

So when the site is rendered, the structure will look like the following:

- [buildPath]/
    - getting-started/
        - intro/
            - index.html
    - welcome/
        - index.html
    - index.html

Snippets

Including HTML in your markdown is easy using the CopperSmith handlebars helper, snippet. Just include the snippet helper in your markdown file where you want the HTML snippet inserted.

This is so we can keep our markdown clean.

## Example Markdown Title

Example markdown text

{{{snippet 'example'}}}

## Another Markdown Title

Each collection will have their own _snippets folder in which all HTML snippets will be kept.

The above code will look for a snippet in the page's collection _snippets folder called example.html. If it doesn't find it, it will look for the snippet in the global [sourcePath]/pages/_snippets folder.

Templates

Templating is supported and allows you to easily change the layout and styling with your own custom layouts and partials using the handlebars templating engine.

Simply run copper theme in your terminal and CopperSmith will setup a templates folder for you to create your own themes.

Read the templating docs for more info.