Advanced Markdown Guide

Slides -> github.com/DavidWells/advanced-markdown

Table of Contents

Why markdown?

Markdown is a universal doc format that is easy to write and easy to add to a version control system.

• Open - Anyone can submit content, fix typos & update anything via pull requests
• Version control - Roll back & see the history of any given post
• No CMS lock in - We can easily port to any static site generator
• It's just simple - No user accounts to manage, no CMS software to upgrade, no plugins to install.

Markdown basics

The basics of markdown can be found here & here. Super easy!

Image with alt & title

![Alt text](/path/to/img.jpg "image title")

Advanced Formatting tips

left alignment

This is the code you need to align images to the left:

<img align="left" width="100" height="100" src="https://picsum.photos/100/100">

right alignment

This is the code you need to align images to the right:

<img align="right" width="100" height="100" src="https://picsum.photos/100/100">

center alignment example

<p align="center">
  <img width="460" height="300" src="https://picsum.photos/460/300">
</p>

Horizontal images no gap

via comment

<p>
    <img src="https://picsum.photos/100/100" >
    <img src="https://picsum.photos/100/100" >
</p>

Horizontal images with gap

With hspace property you can set horizontal (left and right) padding for an image

<p>
    <img src="https://picsum.photos/100/100" hspace="10" >
    <img src="https://picsum.photos/100/100" hspace="10" >
</p>

Vertical images with gap

We also have a property "vspace", which does what it sounds like, add vertical spacing. But it doesn't seem to work on GitHub, unlike VSCode's buit in markdown viewer. So probably just add a <p> tag in between.

<p>
    <img src="https://picsum.photos/500/100" >
    <p>
    <img src="https://picsum.photos/500/100" >
    <p>
    <img src="https://picsum.photos/500/100" >
</p>

Adding video

To add video you need to upload your video file and reference it inline

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/1702215/158075475-c23004ab-827a-45ad-bdba-aee29ac5b582.mp4

Example:

light/dark mode images

Tip via this tweet. Swap out images based on theme settings

![Logo](./dark.png#gh-dark-mode-only)
![Logo](./light.png#gh-light-mode-only)

Using footnotes

Here is a simple footnote¹. With some additional text after it.

Here is a simple footnote[^1]. With some additional text after it.

[^1]: My reference.

Strikethru text in markdown

text with line through it

~~text with line through it~~

Tiny text in markdown

Normal text here.

^{_{Tiny text is here. Awwwww its so cuteeeeeeeeeee}}

How?

<sup><sub>Add your tiny text</sub></sup>

Text box

Add a box with contents to markdown

This is text in the box. Much wow

<div align="center">
<table>
<tbody>
<td align="center">
<img width="2000" height="0"><br>
<sub>This is text in the box. Much wow</sub><br>
<img width="2000" height="0">
</td>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>

collapse Sections

Collapsing large blocks of text can make your markdown much easier to digest

<details>
<summary>"Click to expand"</summary>
this is hidden
</details>

Collapsing large blocks of Markdown text

<details>
<summary>To make sure markdown is rendered correctly in the collapsed section...</summary>

 1. Put an **empty line** after the `<summary>` block.
 2. *Insert your markdown syntax*
 3. Put an **empty line** before the `</details>` tag
 
</details>

Call outs

Add call outs in markdown

Note This is a note

Warning This is a warning

> **Note**
> This is a note

> **Warning**
> This is a warning

additional links

Website • Email Updates • Gitter • Forum • Meetups • Twitter • Facebook • Contact Us

[Website](http://www.serverless.com) • [Email Updates](http://eepurl.com/b8dv4P) • [Gitter](https://gitter.im/serverless/serverless) • [Forum](http://forum.serverless.com) • [Meetups](https://github.com/serverless-meetups/main) • [Twitter](https://twitter.com/goserverless) • [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/serverless) • [Contact Us](mailto:[email protected])

Badges

Nice looking file tree

For whatever reason the graphql syntax will nicely highlight file trees like below:

# Code & components for pages
./src/* 
  ├─ src/assets - # Minified images, fonts, icon files
  ├─ src/components - # Individual smaller components
  ├─ src/fragments - # Larger chunks of a page composed of multiple components
  ├─ src/layouts - # Page layouts used for different types of pages composed of components and fragments
  ├─ src/page - # Custom pages or pages composed of layouts with hardcoded data components, fragments, & layouts
  ├─ src/pages/* - # Next.js file based routing
  │  ├─ _app.js - # next.js app entry point
  │  ├─ _document.js - # next.js document wrapper
  │  ├─ global.css - #  Global CSS styles
  │  └─ Everything else... - # File based routing
  └─ src/utils - # Utility functions used in various places

Using CSS in Readme

Use HTML/CSS in a readme via an SVG! source

The above image is embedded like so:

<div align="center">
  <br/>
  <a href="https://github.com/DavidWells/advanced-markdown/blame/master/svg-with-css.svg">
    <img alt="Click to see the source" height="400" src="svg-with-css.svg" width="800" />
  </a>
  <br/>
</div>

Useful packages

1. gray-matter

YAML front-matter is your friend. You can keep metadata in markdown files

title: Serverless Framework Documentation
description: "Great F'in docs!"
menuText: Docs
layout: Doc

2. Remark

Useful for rendering markdown in HTML/React

3. Markdown Magic

• Repo
• Plugins
• Show automatic doc generation. Example 1 | Example 2

Useful utilities

1. Schedule Posts - Post scheduler for static sites

Show DEMO

2. Zero friction inline content editing

Show DEMO

3. Byword & Typora - Good Editors

4. Monodraw - Flow charts for days

5. Kap - Make gifs

6. IDE markdown preview

7. Stuck on WordPress? Try easy-markdown plugin

How Serverless uses markdown

Serverless.com is comprised of 3 separate repositories

• https://github.com/serverless/blog
• https://github.com/serverless/serverless | Shoutout to Phenomic.io
• https://github.com/serverless/site

Why multiple repos?

1. We wanted documentation about the framework to live in the serverless github repo for easy access
2. We wanted our blog content to be easily portable to any static site generator separate from the implementation (site)
3. prebuild npm script pulls the content together & processes them for site build

A single repo is easier to manage but harder for people to find/edit/PR content.

DEMO

• Site structure
• Serverless build process
• Validation
• Editing Flow
• Github optimizations
  • Link from top of each doc to live link on site
  • use markdown magic =) to auto generate tables etc
  • Hide yaml frontmatter from github folks
  • consider linking everything to site

Other Markdown Resources

• Extended markdown syntax
• Markdown snippets
• Verb - Documentation generator for GitHub projects
• ACSII docs - Markdown alternative
• Markdown parser performance comparison
• Handy markdown templates