nextein

A static site generator with markdown + react for Next.js.

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What is it?

nextein is a wrapper around next.js that allows you to write static sites using markdown and react.

Requirements

NodeJS v8.x+ is required to run nextein commands.

Starter Kit

If you want to jump into a starter project check nextein-starter

Getting Started

There are a few steps you have to follow to get your site up and running with nextein

  • Create a project:

    • mkdir my-site
    • cd my-site
    • npm init -y

  • Install Dependencies

    • npm i nextein next react react-dom

  • Add a next.config.js config file

    const nexteinConfig = require('nextein/config').default

module.exports = nexteinConfig({

})

  • Create pages/index.js

    import React from 'react'

import withPosts from 'nextein/posts'
import { Content } from 'nextein/post'

export default withPosts( ({ posts }) => {
  return (
    <section>
    {
      posts.map(post => <Content {...post} />)
    }
    </section>
  )
})

  • Create a markdown post entry under posts folder (posts/my-first-post.md)

    ---
title: First Post
category: post
---

This is the first paragraph and it will be used as an excerpt when loaded in a `<Content excerpt />` tag.

This paragraph should *not* appear in that list.

  • Add npm scripts to run dev mode to your package.json

    "scripts": {
  "dev": "nextein"
}

  • Run the development server

  • Add another npm script to your package.json to export the site

    "scripts": {
  "dev": "nextein",
  "export": "nextein build && nextein export"
}

Example

See nextein-example for a working example

Documentation

withPosts

HOC for /pages components that renders a list of posts. It makes the post list available thru the posts property.

import withPosts from 'nextein/posts'

export default withPosts( ({ posts }) => { /* render your posts here */ } )

inCategory(category, options)

Filter function to be applied to posts to retrieve posts in a given category.

  • category: {String} The category to filter results.
  • options : {Object} Optional
    • includeSubCategories: Boolean true to include posts in sub categories. Default: false

Categories are resolved by the folder structure by default. This means that a post located at posts/categoryA/subOne will have a category categoryA/subOne unless you specify the category name in frontmatter.

import withPosts, { inCategory } from 'nextein/posts'

export default withPosts( ({ posts }) => { 
  const homePosts = posts.filter(inCategory('home'))
  /* render your homePosts here */ 
} )

If you want to retrieve all posts under a certain category, let's say categoryA which will include all those under subOne, use the options includeSubCategories: true.

import withPosts, { inCategory } from 'nextein/posts'

export default withPosts( ({ posts }) => { 
  const categoryAPosts = posts
    .filter(inCategory('categoryA', { includeSubCategories: true }))
  /* render your categoryAPostsmePosts here */ 
} )

withPostsFilterBy(filter)

Returns an HOC that gets all posts filtered out by the given filter function. This can be used in conjunction with inCategory to get only the desired posts in a certain category.

import { withPostsFilterBy, inCategory } from 'nextein/posts'

const withCategoryAPosts = withPostsFilterBy(inCategory('categoryA'))

export default withCategoryAPosts(({ posts }) => { 
 /* render your posts here */ 
})

sortByDate

Sort function to be applied to posts to sort by date (newest on top). This requires the post contains a date in frontmatter or in the file name (ala jekyll)

import withPosts, { sortByDate } from 'nextein/posts'

export default withPosts( ({ posts }) => { 
  posts.sort(sortByDate)
  /* render your posts here */ 
} )

withPost

HOC for /pages components that renders a single post. It makes the post available thru the post property.

import withPost from 'nextein/post'

export default withPost( ({ post }) => { /* render your post here */ } )

Content

Component to render a post object. This component receives the content from the post as a property.
Use the excerpt property to only render the first paragraph (this is useful when rendering a list of posts).

  • content: {Object} Markdown content in HAST format to be render. This is provided by post.content
  • excerpt: {Boolean} true to only render the first paragraph. Optional. Default: false
  • renderers: {Object} A set of custom renderers for Markdown elements with the form of [tagName]: renderer.
  • prefix: {String} Prefix to use for the generated React elements. Optional. Default: 'entry-'
import withPost, { Content } from 'nextein/post'

export default withPost( ({ post }) => { return (<Content {...post} />) } )

Using the excerpt property

import withPosts, {inCategory} from 'nextein/posts'

export default withPosts( ({ posts }) => { 
  const homePosts = posts.filter(inCategory('home'))
  return (
    <section>
    {
      homePosts.map( (post, idx) => <Content key={idx} {...post} excerpt/> )
    }
    </section>
  )
} )

Using renderers to change/style the <p> tag

export default withPost( ({ post }) => { 
  return (
    <Content {...post} 
      renderers={{
        p: Paragraph 
      }}
    />
  ) 
} )

const Paragraph = ({ children }) => (<p style={{padding:10, background: 'silver'}}> { children } </p> )

You can use nextein/link instead with the exact same parameters as next/link. This component wraps the next/link one to simplify creating a Link for a given post object. next/link will work out of the box.
When passing a post.data.url to href it will generate the underlying next/link with the post information.

  • data: {Object} Post frontmatter object. This is provided by post.data
import withPosts from 'nextein/posts'
import Link from 'nextein/link'

export default withPosts( ({ posts }) => (
  <section>
  {
    posts.map( (post, idx) => {
      return (
        <div>
          <h1>{post.data.title}</h1>
          <Content key={idx} {...post} excerpt/>
          <Link {...post}><a>Read More...</a></Link>
      </div>
      )
    })    
  }
  </section>
))

post

  • data is the frontmatter object containig the post meta information (title, page, category, etc)
    • data.url is the generated url for the post
    • data.category is the post's category. When not specified, if the post is inside a folder, the directory structure under posts will be used.
    • data.date: JSON date from frontmatter's date or date in file name or file creation date
  • raw is markdown content of the post
  • content is a HAST representation of post content

{ data, raw } = post

frontmatter

There are only a few defined properties in the frontmatter metadata that is used by nextein

---
page: my-awesome-post
category: categoryOne
date: 2017-06-23

---

Post Content...
  • page: the component under /pages that will be used to render the post (default to post which reads /pages/post component) Note: If you have an entry that should not be rendered by its own page (such as a part of an index file only) use page: false to avoid generating the url and exporting entry.
  • category: the category name (optional)
  • date: date string in YYYY-MM-DD format. Used to sort posts list. (optional)
  • published: Set to false to remove this post from entries.
  • permalink: Set the url using any parameter in the frontmatter object. Default value /:category?/:name. The ? means the parameter will be optional.
  • name: Read Only The post file name. Date is removed from name if present.
  • url: Read Only The post url.

nexteinConfig

A wrapper configuration function to be applied into the next.config.js. It provides a way to add your own next.js config along with nextein internal next.js config.

next.config.js


const nexteinConfig = require('nextein/config').default

module.exports = nexteinConfig({
  // Your own next.js config here
})

GitHub