Sitedown NPM | npm.io

sitedown

Minimalist Markdown-based static site generator.

Overview

Sitedown turns a folder with Markdown files into a static HTML site.

.                              build/
├─ README.md         ==>       ├─ index.html
├─ about.md          ==>       └─ about/
│                              │  └─ index.html
│                              │
├─ docs/                       └─ docs/
│  ├─ README.md      ==>       │  ├─ index.html
│  └─ ref.md         ==>       │  └─ ref/
│                              │     └─ index.html
│                              │
└─ assets/                     └─ assets/
   └─ cat.jpg        ==>          └─ cat.jpg

It takes all markdown files in the current folder (and subfolders) and generates a new site in the build directory.

Converts README.md files into indexes (index.html).
Creates directory indexes for pretty URLs (CHANGELOG.md => changelog/index.html).
Supports custom layouts (comes with a default layout.html).
Copies assets (defaults to copying over contents of assets folder).
Comes with a dev mode that starts a server and watches for changes for easy local development.

Sitedown's website was built with sitedown, so you know it's for real.

Read the Usage section for a full overview of options and defaults.

Install

npm install sitedown

Usage

CLI

Usage: sitedown [source] [options]

    Example: sitedown . -b dist -l layout.html

    source                path to source directory (default: current working directory)
    --build, -b           path to build directory (default: "build")
    --pretty              use directory indexes for pretty URLs (default: true)
    --el, -e              css selector for target element (default: ".markdown-body")
    --layout, -l          path to layout file
    --github-headings, -g add anchors to headings just like GitHub (default: false)
    --no-hljs-class       don't add the hljs class to codeblocks (default: false)
    --silent, -s          make less noise during build
    --watch, -w           watch a directory or file (experimental)
    --dev, -d             start development server (experimental) (default: false)
    --assets, -a          assets folder to copy (default: "assets")
    --version, -v         show version information
    --help, -h            show help

Node API

var sitedown = require('sitedown')

var options = {
  source: '.',            // path to source directory                 default: cwd
  build: 'build',         // path to build directory                  default: 'build' in cwd
  pretty: true,           // use directory indexes for pretty URLs    default: true
  el: '.markdown-body',   // css selector for target element          default: '.markdown-body'
  layout: 'layout.html',  // path to layout                           default: none
  githubHeadings: false,  // add anchors to headings just like GitHub default: false
  noHljsClass: false,     // don't add hljs class to codeblocks       default: false
  silent: false           // make less noise during build             default: false
}

sitedown(options, function (err) {
  if (err) return console.error(err)
  console.log('success')
})

Layout

All files are wrapped in a layout.html file. Markdown content is appended to the first .markdown-body element, and the page title (<title> in <head>) is set to the text of the first h1 element.

The default layout is:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
    <title></title>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://unpkg.com/style.css">
  </head>
  <body>
    <main class="markdown-body"></main>
  </body>
</html>

The default layout comes bundled with style.css, a classless stylesheet for markdown documents.

Directory indexes (pretty URLs)

Markdown files ($f.md, $f.markdown) are lowercased and parsed into $f/index.html files. Directory indexes can be disabled with the pretty: false option. README.md files are always converted to directory indexes (index.html).