This is a tool for Laravel's Nova administrator panel that allows you to create markdown-based documentation for your application; without having to leave the Nova environment.
- Parses each markdown document and renders them in the Nova dashboard
- Dynamic page titles: Each h1 tag (
# title
) is set as the page title- Each page title is then used to construct a sidebar, allowing for navigation through your documentation.
- Allows for nested directories
- Supports YAML parsing to further customize page titles
- Syntax highlighting for code blocks (via highlight.js)
- Replaces local links within the body content to work within the Nova environment.
- Supports Laravel Nova Responsive Theme
You can install the package via composer:
composer require dniccum/nova-documentation
You will then need to publish the package's configuration and blade view files to your applications installation:
php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Dniccum\NovaDocumentation\ToolServiceProvider"
Finally, you will need to register the tool within the NovaServiceProvider.php
:
use Dniccum\NovaDocumentation\NovaDocumentation;
...
/**
* Get the tools that should be listed in the Nova sidebar.
*
* @return array
*/
public function tools()
{
return [
// other tools
new NovaDocumentation,
];
}
If you are upgrading from version 1, you will need to do the following things:
If you published the configuration from this package using the vendor:publish
command, you will need to add the following code your novadocumentation.php
configuration file's array:
'parser' => env('NOVA_DOCUMENTATION_PARSER', 'yaml'),
If you are planning on not refactoring your markdown files to NOT take advantage of the new YAML configuration options, you will need to either modify your configuration file accordingly, or simply set the following environment variable:
NOVA_DOCUMENTATION_PARSER=markdown
If you have any ---
horizontal rules in your markdown files and your are using the yaml
parser, you will need to convert those to use ***
instead as this will cause the YAML processing to error.
- After all of this tool's assets have been published, there should be two
.md
(markdown) files placed within a documentation directory at the base of yourresources
directory.- If you would like to change this directory, change the
config('novadocumentation.home')
configuration definition. - By default, the "home page" entry point is
home.md
. Again if you would like to change that, be sure that you alter theconfig('novadocumentation.home')
configuration.
- If you would like to change this directory, change the
- If using the markdown setup, the sidebar navigation is constructed using two different elements: the name of the file and the title of within the file. This title is dynamically pulled from the first
# title
in each file.
If you are using the yaml
parsing method, you have the OPTIONAL ability to customize how each page is built and shown within the sidebar. You can modify the following attributes:
- title - The title of the page within the sidebar
- path - The path/route/link of the page. Provide a valid URL
- order - The order in which this page will appear in the sidebar
If we wanted to customize a page of documentation we would need to add the following content to the top of the page:
---
title: "Adding Content"
path: content
order: 2
---
# Adding content to your application
...
The important thing to note is the ---
element wrapping the configuration. This will not work if this is not in place. The title should be pretty self-explanatory. The path allows you to customize the route to the page.
If you would like to link to other markdown files within your body content, outside of the sidebar, be sure to use relative links that DO NOT begin with a forward slash, like so /relative
. For example if you are linking from the home page to a sub-directory based file called authentication, you would link to it like so:
[authentication](authentication/base.md)
The tool will dynamically replace this link.
If you would like to include a relative link to another location within your application or Nova itself, include a link that is prefixed with a forward slash (/
), like so:
[terms and services](/terms-and-services)
Other types of links that are supported:
- Mailto (
mailto:
) links - External http and https links
The configuration items listed below can be found in the novadocumentation.php
configuration file.
<?php
return [
/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Title
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| The name/title of this tool that will appear on the home page and within
| the navigation.
|
*/
'title' => 'Documentation',
/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Parser
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Set the parser that you would like to use to parse your documentation.
| It is recommended to use the "yaml" parser as it allows for further
| configuration, but may not be as user friendly to all devs/users.
|
| Available parsers: yaml, markdown
|
*/
'parser' => env('NOVA_DOCUMENTATION_PARSER', 'yaml'),
/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Markdown Flavor
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| The flavor/style of markdown that will be used. The GitHub flavor is the
| default as it supports code blocks and other "common" uses.
|
*/
'flavor' => 'github',
/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Home Page
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| The markdown document that will be used as the home page and/or entry
| point. This will be located within the documentation directory that resides
| within your application's resources directory.
|
*/
'home' => 'documentation/home.md',
];
The Nova Documentation tool is free software licensed under the MIT license.