Markdown Docs

The same readme, built with this: here!

This repository contains the definition of a Docker image that can be used both as a builder stage and as an action.

markdown-docs is implemented as a jam of stuff you don't even need to know about. Just assume that everything is supported until you find that it's not, then submit an issue to add support for even that thing. Only if you really need it.

Supported Markdown extensions:

• The default, standard, Markdown syntax, described at this website, with these differences.
• markdown_include: Command that embeds a markdown file into another. Headers will be shifted to subheaders relative to enclosing header. See the readme.
• plantuml_markdown: Don't you know PlantUML already? For usage explanation see the readme. Supports non-UML tags like @startjson or math equations too.
• arithmatex: Provides mathematical style and fonts for expressions. See the docs.
• admonition and details: Provides highlighted text cells for many purposes. See the admonitions docs and details docs. Details are also called collapsible blocks.
• keys: You can embed keyboard symbols in text. See the docs.
• tabs: Enables content tabs. See the docs.
• tasklist: Enables GitHub style tasks list. See the docs.
• abbreviations: Enables explanations for abbrevations. See the docs.
• footnotes: Enables footnotes. See the docs.
• literate-nav: Allows to customize navigation menus for each folder. The navigation menu must be specified inside a SUMMARY.md file. For more information see the docs.
• nl2br: Enables newlines to be converted to <br> tags. See the docs.
• callouts: Enables Obsidian-styled callout blocks. For more information, see the docs.

Supported plugins

• git-revision-date-localized: Displays the last edit date of the page. The date appears automatically at the bottom if a git history is found. See the docs for more information.
• git-authors-plugin: Displays git authors of the page. Authors appear automatically at the bottom if a git history is found. See the docs for more information.
• notebooks: .ipynb file rendering support.

Usage

You can use markdown-docs both as a GitHub Acton or a Docker builder stage inside your dockerfile.

As GitHub Action

To use markdown-docs as a GitHub Action, use the following syntax in your workflow:

      - name: Generate HTML from Markdown
        uses: ldeluigi/markdown-docs@latest
        with:
          src: doc
          dst: generated

This means that every markdown file inside the doc folder in the current workspace will be converted and mapped to a corresponding HTML file inside the generated directory. You can pass . as src to search the entire repo for markdown files. dst folder will be emptied before generation.

Additional information

In order to make the "last edit date" plugin work you need to clone the full history of your documentation inside your CI. With GitHub actions this can be done using the option fetch-depth: 0 with the actions/checkout@v3 step.

Complete usage example with all the parameters

      - name: Generate HTML from Markdown
        uses: ldeluigi/markdown-docs@latest
        with:
          src: doc
          dst: generated
          title: Markdown Docs
          language: en
          icon: library
          primary-color: indigo
          secondary-color: indigo
          hide-repository: false

Additional parameters info

• title is an optional parameter (defaults to the name of the repository, such as ldeluigi/markdown-docs or Documentation if no repo is detected) that sets the title displayed at the top of the documentation website.
• language is an optional paramater (defaults to en) that allows to change language features and search features.
• icon is an optional parameter (defaults to library) that selects the main top-left icon of the documentation website. Can be one of the icons from Material Design Icons.
• primary-color is an optional parameter (defaults to indigo) that selects the main color of the documentation website. For more information, see the docs.
• secondary-color is an optional parameter (defaults to indigo) that selects the accent color of the documentation website. For more information, see the docs.
• hide-repository is an optional parameter (defaults to false) that, if set to true, will hide every reference to the source repo. Useful for private repos.

As Docker builder

To use markdown-docs as a Docker builder stage use the following syntax in your Dockerfile:

FROM deloo/markdown-docs AS builder

COPY docs/ /home/src
ENV WORKSPACE=/home
RUN makedocs "src" "dst"

FROM ...

COPY --from=builder /home/dst /var/www/static/

This means that first docker stage creates a container where it runs the makedocs script, then will copy the resulting, generated HTML files in the production image, specifically in /var/www/static. This can be useful for your static website hosting. See the Wiki for more examples.

Environment variables

There are some environment variables that control the behaviour of the builder. These are:

ENV WORKSPACE=/home
# Optionals (with their default values)
ENV TITLE=Markdown Docs
ENV LANGUAGE=en
ENV ICON=library
ENV PRIMARY_COLOR=indigo
ENV SECONDARY_COLOR=indigo
ENV HIDE_REPOSITORY=false

• WORKSPACE selects the path in which the main script is run. This path should be the root of your working directory, inside which there are both the source folder and the destination folder.
• TITLE, LANGUAGE, ICON, PRIMARY_COLOR, SECONDARY_COLOR, HIDE_REPOSITORY are all described in this section.

Notes about documenting your software

The idea behind markdown-docs is that all the documentation that can be written in separate files from the code should be mantained like the code documentation, that is thinking about the content and not the appearence. In addition, some of the most important tools for documentation are UML diagrams. In particular, one of the most maintainable way to draw UMLs is PlantUML, which can generate UML diagrams for a text specification.
One of the most important features of markdown-docs is the support of PlantUML syntax embedded inside documentation sources, in Markdown.

Contributing

Fork this project and make PRs, if you can't you can create an issue.

Local tests

With Docker (suggested):

docker build -t markdown-docs . --no-cache
docker run -e WORKSPACE=/github/workspace -v <YOUR-CURRENT-WORKING-DIRECTORY>:/github/workspace markdown-docs . result/