A very simple static website generator written in C#/.Net. I created this mainly because I was disappointed at the sheer complexity of any of the existing static site generators I was able to find. No offense to anyone creating web content, but to me, things have gotten far too complex to create even a minimal website. I plan to dogfood markerator for my own website once it reaches a minimum level of maturity. And yes, I realize the logo is very immature.
Although it seems to be a necessary evil nowadays, I tend to detest javascript use in web pages. That being said, the sites generated using Markerator will use no/minimal javascript, and will offer no tracking or analytics features built-in. If that's what you need in a static site generator, feel free to fork this repo and add those things yourself - I'll never include them by default.
Any platform that .NET 5 or newer supports.
usage: markerator -h
A very simple static website generator written in C#/.Net
-t|--title The title of the website. Examples: Markerator Generated Site,
zombo.com
-u|--url The base Url of the website, omitting the trailing slash.
Examples: https://www.slashdot.org, https://elementary.io
-i|--indexFile The markdown file that is to be converted into the index.html
file. Examples: mainFile.md, radicalText.md
-p|--posts Optional with default 'False'. Whether or not the site should
include a posts link (like a news or updates section.)
Examples: true, false
-pt|--postsTitle Optional with default ''. A single title, or comma separated
list of titles, that represents a link to each section of the
site that will be a 'feed.' Each postsTitle specified should
have a corresponding folder that contains one or more Markdown
files. Examples: News, Updates, Blog, ProjectsMultiple values
can be used by joining them with any of the following
separators: , ;
-rss|--rssFeed Optional with default 'False'. Whether or not to generate Rss
feeds from your posts/news/blog pages. Examples: true, false
-ri|--rssIcon Optional with default 'False'. If set to true, and an icon
named 'rss.jpg' or 'rss.png' exists in the /images folder,
then an icon link will be created that links to each pages Rss
feed. Examples: true, false
-f|--favicon Optional with default 'False'. Whether or not the site should
use a favicon.ico file in the /input/images directory.
Examples: true, false
-op|--otherPages Optional with default ''. Additional pages that should be
linked from the navigation bar, provided as a comma separated
list of .md files. Examples: About.md,Contact.mdMultiple
values can be used by joining them with any of the following
separators: , ;
-c|--css Optional with default ''. Inlude a custom CSS file that will
theme the generated site. Examples: LightTheme.css,
DarkTheme.css
In order for markerator to correctly process your markdown input files, it expects a pre-determined folder layout, with a number of folders/files inside it. It will then process the input files and if successful put the resulting Html site into the /output folder.
Below represents the minimum that markerator expects in order to create a valid Html website.
/input/index.md
/markerator
./markerator --title Bengineering --indexFile index.md
Example including a posts section and a favicon.
/input/images/favicon.ico
/input/posts/post1.md
/input/posts/post2.md
/input/index.md
/markerator
./markerator --title Bengineering --indexFile index.md --favicon true --posts true
As of the 0.2.5 version of Markerator, if your side includes Posts/News/Blog/Projects markdown files, there is a new option that can be used. If the entry in your markdown file is of headine H1, and is formatted to contain any valid DateTime in it, then Markerator will generate a Posts/News/Blog/Projects page for you that organizes the posts by their given dates. If this H1 section is ommitted, then Markerator will just categorize Posts/News as "All" in that section of the generated site.
-
At the moment, the Posts/News section is sorted internally by File Creation Time, so even if they contain valid and orderedDateTimevalues, they will still be listed by File Creation Date in the generated Posts/News section. This should be addressed in a following update.
- Markdown input processing (via Markdig)
- Html interception/injection (via HtmlAgilityPack)
- CLI argument processing (via FluentArgs)
- Post Generation
- App versioning
- Custom fonts
- Multiple Page creation for more than just index.html and Posts
- Custom Css loading
- Basic Css validation
- Page footers
- Include markerator in Github CI
- Add RSS feed support
- Rss icon is now shown on the Posts/News/Blog/Projects pages, linking to the Rss feed
- Refactor the code to map different page types to different concrete classes. Simply manipulating strings has gotten out of hand.
- Refactor the code to move the Html generation out of markerator.cs
- Abstract out the "posts" concept to allow any number of links in the navigation that lead to a posts-style page
- Theme selection
- A few sensible included themes
- Image manipulation for Post Summary (cards)
- Better exception/error handling and user feedback
- Advanced Css validation
- Custom footers
- Refactor the code to allow for output directory cleanups, and move the directory code into it's own class
- Add
<summary />tags to generated pages to allow unfurling of URL's on various social media sites - Document the theme Css format to allow users to create new themes
- Add more robust error detection and reporting
Markerator uses a number of very handy nuget packages to do what it does, and for that, I am very thankful. Please help support the authors where you can, as they're doing everyone a great service:
- FluentResult - Exception handling shouldn't be control flow.
- FluentArgs - The best CLI argument handling library around.
- Markdig - Converting markdown to Html couldn't be easier.
- HtmlAgilityPack - Peeking at Html made dead simple.
- ExCss - Peeking at Css made dead simple.