Githubdocs

Easily build a searchable documentation Single Page Application (SPA) using markdown files in your Github Repo or local Markdown files. Github docs is a lightweight alternative to Gitbooks allowing simple but powerful Markdown generate documentation websites.

Website from Github Repo

Installation

1. Clone Repository: git clone https://github.com/mrvautin/githubdocs.git && cd githubdocs
2. Install dependencies: npm install
3. Start application: npm start
4. Go to http://127.0.0.1:5555 in your browser

Demo

https://githubdocs.markmoffat.com

Markdown files

The docs menu and files are built using files from your Github repo set in the config. Files should have the title of the doc in a single markdown hash/# (HTML = H1) tag in the file. This is used to build the slug of the doc and the menu title etc.

See example docs here: https://github.com/mrvautin/githubdocs/tree/master/exampleDocs

Search

Search is built using Lunr.js. The index is built and stored in memory on startup. When searched from the client the API is called returning any matching docs from the embedded DB. The menu will then display the match docs. When the search term is removed, the full list of docs is returned.

Config

The config file is located here: /config/config.json.

An example config:

{
    "title": "githubdocs",
    "githubRepoOwner": "mrvautin",
    "githubRepoName": "githubdocs",
    "githubRepoPath": "exampleDocs",
    "updateDocsInterval": 300000,
    "addAnchors": true,
    "menuItems": [
        {
            "menuTitle": "About",
            "menuLink": "/about"
        },
        {
            "menuTitle": "Contact",
            "menuLink": "/contact"
        }
    ]
}

Setting	Description
title	Sets the value to be displayed at the top of the page
githubRepoOwner	Owner/username of the Github repo
githubRepoName	Name of the repo holding the Markdown files
githubRepoPath	Directory relative to the root of the repo holding the Markdown files
updateDocsInterval	Determines the interval (in milliseconds) to poll Github for updates to your Markdown files/docs
addAnchors	Transforms H1, H2, H3, H4, H5 info HTML anchor points for easy sharing
menuItems	Not sure how useful this is. Set the menu items in the top navigation

Static websites

It's also possible to create a site from local Markdown files rather than using a Github repo.

Building

You can build your website using the following command from the root of your app:

node githubdocs build

Starting

You can start your website using the following command from the root of your app:

node githubdocs serve

Or

node server.js

Config

To do this you place your Markdown files into the docs folder and add the Titles and file names to your config.json file.

An example config.json for a static site:

"docs": [
    {
        "title": "Aut procul ursos nondum",
        "file": "docs/Aut procul ursos nondum.md"
    },
    {
        "title": "dsdsd ursos sdsdds dsdsd",
        "file": "docs/dsdsd ursos sdsdds dsdsd.md"
    },
    {
        "title": "Erant ventorum aliter esse pervenientia mutua numquam",
        "file": "docs/Erant ventorum aliter esse pervenientia mutua numquam.md"
    },
    {
        "title": "Suam aera",
        "file": "docs/Suam aera.md"
    }
]

The title property will be used for the menu, title and slug. The file value is the name and path to the file.

Layouts

You can also specify your own layout file. The default index.html file is used unless you specify a different file in your config.json.

{
    "layoutFile": "material.html"
}

Included is a material.html design template and a Bootstrap template (index.html).