Enhancement ideas

[Dvergar]

First, thanks for this tool. I've been trying to create a portfolio and i stumbled upon this after fighting with premade templates, bootstrap & co.

I've been customizing a theme of mine and the more i worked on this the more i thought it would be cool to give a bit more power to the meta.json.

I'll give a few of the ideas i got, more as a todo list that anything if i find the time, but also in the case someone want to have an eye on this.

Parsing the css looking for meta.json variables It would be great to give the layout user a way to customize a few things without diving into the css itself (or the layout folder).

e.g. "background" : "red" and using a background-color : {{background}} in the css.

Allowing a default meta.json in the layout folder In my theme i use the meta.json to set my profile image and a few contact links. If i can give a default meta.json in my theme and if it's copied into the markdown project itself it would be easier for a user to understand what's possible to do with the theme.

Adding an if operator Maybe, by design, you want to keep things simple and i like the idea that a layout doesn't need more than just the default command without necesarily looking into the meta.json - but a {{if variable equals value}} and/or {{if variable exists}} would allow for a more dynamic theme without requiring the user to edit/add anything into the meta file. It would be possible to create more powerful themes as well. In my theme above i have a {{github}}, {{twitter}} and {{email}} variable which are links associated to the little icons but i can't hide them depending on if the variable exists or not.

e.g. {{if github exists}} <a href="{{github}}">My github repo</a>{{endif}}

Adding a sample command Since my two last points are not entirely compatible a --sample command would create a dummy project with a default meta.json showing all the features the theme can offer. A normal markdown parsing would still work giving the simple version of the theme. (without the profile image and the contact links in mine)

[mixu]

Hi, great to hear that generate-md has been useful!

I've been thinking along similar lines re: extending the capabilities of the layouts engine. I think it would be even better to add (optional) Ghost theme support http://docs.ghost.org/themes/ because that blogging engine has a lot of good themes and a specified language that people have been using for a while. Haven't looked into it in detail yet but will probably add support eventually, which will both expand the abilities of the templating system and add hundreds of compatible themes.

[mixu]

Just to update this fantastic issue:

• I wrote a tool called ghost-render that supports the Ghost theme syntax, which is quite nice for blogging-oriented stuff (including stuff like RSS feed generation and author pages)
• Custom CSS can be now be generated, though it needs to be inline with the layout since .css files are not passed through Handlebars.
• Metadata handling has been improved. The meta.json file is now loaded from the input folder instead of process.cwd, which is more sensible as you pointed out. In addition, individual markdown files can override the values set in it.
• The if operator was added in v2.0 as part of the move to a fully featured templating system (Handlebars)
• While the --sample CLI option does not exist, the --exports CLI option makes it a bit easier to get started by copying a builtin layout as a starting point.

So thanks for filing the issue, many of the features in v2.0 were inspired or influenced by it.