Folderise

Folderise is a express middleware to create static (or semi-static) websites from a folder of markdown files.

Folderise was developed for Frontyard Project's website as a simple way for multiple authors to easily modify the organisations website. We used a shared dropbox folder, so that any changes to the files/folders immediately caused the website to update.

Guide:

• Every folder becomes a page. The title of the folder is the name of the page.
• Any .md file included in a folder will be parsed as Markdown and rendered in alphabetic order.
• After .md files, if there are other files they will rendered as download links.
• Any image will be served as an image at the bottom of the page.
• Any folders, files, or images that begin with a . or an _ will not be rendered.
• Listings will be alphabetical.
• The sites pages are cached in _tmp.html files inside each folder.
• Folderise uses ckokidar to listen for any changes to the website folder and automatically rerenders any changes.
• template.html is used as the base folder

Folderise is a based on the python static website generator Folders.

Still to do:

• enable template to be overriden in settings.
• include .css or .less

Install:

npm install folderise

Folderise requires a settings.json file with the following options:

{
    "port": /* port for server to listen on */,
    "title": /*  title of your site */,
    "folder": /* path/to/folder */,
    "plugins": [ /* list of plugins */ ]
}

Check out the example provided for how to intergate Folderise into your express application.

var express	= require('express');
var helmet	= require('helmet');
var bodyParser = require('body-parser');
var errorHandler = require('errorhandler');
 
var options = require('./settings.json');
var folderise = require("folderise")(options);
 
var port = options.port;
var app = express();
 
app.use(helmet());
app.use(helmet.noCache());
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({extended: true}));
app.use(bodyParser.json());
app.use(errorHandler());
 
app.use('/', express.static(options.folder));
app.use(folderise.middleman() );
app.get('*', folderise.serve() );
 
app.listen(port, function() {
  console.log('Express server listening on port ' + port);
});

Note: If not using any folderise plugins you can increase performance by using Nginx to serve static content.