Docsite Maven Plugin

Docsite is a Maven plugin that generates static documentation sites with minimal effort. It is an alternative to the standard Maven site generation, providing the following benefits:

• No extra configuration files required
• Several source formats including Markdown, Asciidoc, HTML, XML, JSON and YAML
• Automatic generation of ToCs (Table of Content)
• Code syntax highlighting using Prism
• Diagram rendering using Mermaid
• Not bound to any Maven reporting plugin
• Easily customizable
• Responsiveness
• Usage of HTML5 semantic tags (aimed to get good SEO positioning)

This very site has been generated using Docsite (check the site in case you are reading this document from Github).

Get started

1. Add the plugin to your build configuration in the pom.xml file:

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>io.github.luiinge</groupId>
                <artifactId>docsite-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>1.5.2</version>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

2. Create the origin resources if necessary (such as Javadocs or some Maven reports)
3. Run the docsite:generate goal

mvn docsite:generate

If you want a custom site structure, you can pass an external JSON file with the docsite definition:

mvn docsite:generate -Ddocsite.docsiteFile=mydocsite.json

You can also provide custom configuration just after the declaration of the plugin within the pom.

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>io.github.luiinge</groupId>
                <artifactId>docsite-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>1.5.2</version>
                <configuration>
                    <docsite>
                        ...
                        <sections>
                            <section>
                                ...
                            </section>
                        </sections>
                    </docsite>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

Check the goal documentation for an exhaustive list of every configuration parameter.

Documentation sections

Apart from the landing page, you can define different sections for the documentation site. Each section would generate its own page and also an entry in the navigation menu at the header. Each section must define the type of strategy that would be used in order to generate the proper output. The available section types are:

Generated page

A single HTML page would be generated from a source file. Markdown, HTML and raw text sources are processed directly, whereas XML, JSON and YAML sources requires a Freemarker transformation template.

<section>
    <type>generated</type>
    <name>Changelog</name>
    <source>CHANGELOG.md</source>
</section>

<section>
    <type>generated</type>
    <name>Dependencies</name>
    <source>target/dependencies.xml</source>
    <template>templates/dependencies.ftl</template>
</section>

Embedded site

A complete site (from a local folder) would be copied into the documentation site, and shown inside an embedded iframe component.

<section>
    <type>embedded</type>
    <name>Javadoc</name>
    <source>target/site/apidocs</source>
    <siteIndex>index.html</siteIndex>
</section>

Copy site

A complete site (from a local folder) would be copied into the documentation site, but linked and loaded in a new tab as an independent page.

<section>
    <type>copy</type>
    <name>Javadoc</name>
    <source>target/site/apidocs</source>
    <siteIndex>index.html</siteIndex>
</section>

Section Group

A simple HTML page would be generated including links to other sections of the documentation site. These linked sections are defined hierarchically in the subsections property of the section. Also, a dropdown menu would be used in the navigation header.

<section>
    <type>group</type>
    <name>Reports</name>
    <subsections>
        <section>
            ...
        </section>
        <section>
            ...
        </section>
    </subsections>
</section>

Link

No specific page is generated, but rather a simple link in the navigation header.

<section>
    <type>link</type>
    <name>Company Site</name>
    <source>http://my.company.com</source>
</section>

Auto-configured sites

In absence of a site configuration, the plugin would generate one for you. Although not fully compliant with every posible scenario, it would make an attempt to generate a good-enough site according the resources found in the project:

• The project name and description set in the pom.xml file would be used as the title in the site header
• In presence of a main README.* file, it would be used as the landing page of the site.
• In presence of a CHANGELOG.* file, a Changelog section would be created
• In presence of a LICENSE file, a License section would be created
• In presence of the target/site/apidocs directory, a subsection Javadoc would be created within the main report section
• In presence of the target/site/dependencies.html file, a subsection Dependencies would be created within the main report section
• In presence of the target/site/surefire-report.html file, a subsection Test Results would be created within the main report section
• In presence of the target/site/jacoco directory, a subsection Coverage would be created within the main report section
• In presence of the target/classes/META-INF/maven/plugin.xml (specific for Maven plugin projects), a subsection Plugin Goals would be created within the main report section.
• If the scm section of the pom.xml file is filled, a link to the corresponding version control site would be added (with custom icons for Github, Gitlab and Bitbucket)

The following configuration would be equivalent to the autogenerated configuration:

<docsite>
    <title>${project.name}</title>
    <description>${project.description}</description>
    <index>README.md</index>
    <sections>
        <section>
            <type>generated</type>
            <name>Changelog</name>
            <description>Log of modifications on new versions</description>
            <source>CHANGELOG.md</source>
            <icon>fas:clipboard-list</icon>
        </section>
        <section>
            <type>group</type>
            <name>Reports</name>
            <description>Collection of technical reports about this project</description>
            <icon>fas:file-medical-alt</icon>
            <subsections>
                <section>
                    <type>embedded</type>
                    <name>Javadoc</name>
                    <source>${project.reporting.outputDirectory}/apidocs</source>
                    <icon>fab:java</icon>
                </section>
                <section>
                    <type>generated</type>
                    <name>Plugin Goals</name>
                    <source>${project.build.outputDirectory}/classes/META-INF/maven/plugin.xml</source>
                    <template>maven-plugin-descriptor</template>
                </section>
                <section>
                    <type>generated</type>
                    <name>Test Results</name>
                    <source>${project.reporting.outputDirectory}/surefire-report.html</source>
                </section>
                <section>
                    <type>embedded</type>
                    <name>Test Coverage</name>
                    <source>${project.reporting.outputDirectory}/jacoco</source>
                </section>
                <section>
                    <type>generated</type>
                    <name>Dependencies</name>
                    <source>${project.reporting.outputDirectory}/dependencies.html</source>
                    <replaceEmojis>false</replaceEmojis>
                </section>
            </subsections>
        </section>
        <section>
            <type>link</type>
            <name>Source</name>
            <source>https://github.com/luiinge/docsite-maven-plugin</source>
            <icon>fab:github</icon>
        </section>
        <section>
            <type>generated</type>
            <name>License</name>
            <source>LICENSE</source>
            <icon>fas:balance-scale</icon>
        </section>
    </sections>
</docsite>

Multi-module projects

In case you are working with a multi-module Maven project, you would require to execute two different goals.

• Firstly, the generate goal that would generate a site per sub-project
• Secondly, the aggregate goal that would generate a different site only for the root project. You can pass a different docsite configuration to the aggregate goal with embedded or copy sections referring to the subproject sites.

For example, your root pom.xml might contain something like the following:

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>io.github.luiinge</groupId>
                <artifactId>docsite-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>1.2.1</version>
                <executions>
                  <execution>
                    <goals>
                      <goal>generate</goal>
                    </goals>
                    <configuration>
                        <docsite>
                          <!-- common configuration applied to each subproject -->
                        </docsite>
                    </configuration>
                  </execution>
                  <execution>
                    <goals>
                      <goal>aggregate</goal>
                    </goals>
                    <configuration>
                      <docsite>
                        <!-- configuration applied to root subproject -->
                      </docsite>
                    </configuration>
                  </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

Advanced usage

Icons

For the main property logo, as well as the section property icon, you can choose among different sources according the property value:

• Starting with http: or https:, the image source would be an external link to the given URL
• Starting with fa:, fas:, far: or fab:, the image would be a Font Awesome 5 icon
• Starting with data:image, you can embed an image using the corresponding Base64 code (as defined in RFC-2397)
• Otherwise, a local image file would be expected

Github emojis

Github uses a mechanism that replaces specific text markups with icons when displaying certain documents (for example, the following would be rendered as an emoji: 😄). The pages generated with Docsite would apply the same transformations by default in order to emulate such representation. However, it is possible that some documents use those markups without any emoji intention and hence the generated page would contain unexpected images. If you experience this problem, simply disable the emoji replacement by setting to false the property replaceEmojis in the problematic section.

About CDN resources

The websites generated with Docsite make use of CDN (Content Distribution Network) for some required resources (Font Awesome 5 and Prism scripts and stylesheets). This is highly advisable to improve loading time and reducing traffic. However, there might be specific scenarios where a local copy would be preferred. You can instruct Docsite to use a local copy of such resources setting to false the property useCDN.

Maven lifecycle

In contrast with the default Maven site generation, that is based in the concept of pluggable reports, Docsite does not require to be executed in the context of a Maven site. The generate goal is attached to the post-site phase by default, but you are not forced to invoke the site goal at all. Rather, you can redefine the phase or invoke docsite:generate at will. The only consideration is that in most cases you may require the result of some other report that is intended to be used with site. Some report plugins have goals that can be executed standalone, but most require the site context.

Using Docsite without Maven

This piece of software is designed as a Maven plugin, but actually that is a loose requirement. As any regular Jar file, you can include it (along with its dependencies) in your classpath and make use of the DocsiteEmitter class without a Maven executor. It is, though, still advisable that you peek the implementation of DocsiteMojo in order to get the idea of the minimum setup required.

Adding analytic features

If you want to analyze the traffic of your documentation site, you may need to insert custom code into the head section, such as specific meta-data or binding scripts. In order to allow that, any custom code can be added using the metadata and scripts properties. Here you can add your extra code, like in the following example:

<configuration>
      ...
      <metadata>
        <keywords>CSS,Javascript</keywords>
      </metadata>
     ...
      <scripts>
        <script>
          <src>https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=XXXXXXX</src>
          <async>true</async>
        </script>
        <script>
          <code>
            window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
            function gtag(){ dataLayer.push(arguments); }
            gtag('js', new Date());
            gtag('config', 'XXXXXXXXX');
          </code>
        </script>
      </scripts>
      ...
</configuration>

Localization

You can enrich your documentation site providing localized versions of some documents. When enabled, a language selection option would be accessible in every page in the top right corner.

In order to enable the localization features, you must provide the list of provided languages within the plugin configuration. For example:

<configuration>
      ...
      <languages>
        <language>en:English</language>
        <language>es:Español</language>
      </languages>
      ...
</configuration>

Each language is defined by two codes separated by :. The first code is the language code used by your localized documents. The second code corresponds to the display language and should be the translated name of the language. Notice that the first language in the list is considered as the primary language.

During the generation process, for each section marked with the generated type, a similar source file will be searched at the same location of the original source, but with a prefix indicating the language code just before the extension (or just at the end of the name if there is no extension). For example, for a given README.md file and the additional language code es, a file named README_es.md would be expected. The primary language, however, would use the file with the regular name, just like if no localization was defined.

In addition to the document content, you can provide translations for the names and descriptions used by the site and its sections. In order to do that, use the localizations configuration property. For example:

<configuration>
      ...
      <docsite>
        <title>My Project Title</title>
        <description>My Project Description</description>
        <index>README.md</index>
        <sections>
            <section>
                <type>generated</type>
                <name>Changelog</name>
                <description>Log of modifications</description>
                <source>CHANGELOG.md</source>
            </section>
        </sections>
      </docsite>

      <languages>
        <language>en:English</language>
        <language>es:Español</language>
      </languages>

      <localizations>
        <localization>
          <language>es</language>
          <values>
            <Changelog>Historial de cambios</Changelog>
          </values>
        </localization>
      </localizations>

</configuration>

Alternatively, you can create a JSON file like the following:

{
  "es": {
    "My Project Title": "Título del proyecto",
    "My Project Description": "Descripción de mi proyecto",
    "Changelog": "Historial de cambios"
  }
}

and pass it with the property localizationFile.

Notice that the primary language has no translations in the JSON file, since they are directly provided in the configuration and are used as keys for the other languages.

Common Issues

No plugin found for prefix 'docsite' in the current project and in the plugin.

You can get this message when running mvn docsite:generate or mvn docsite:aggregate. That is because Maven only resolve plugin prefixes for plugins belonging to the groups org.apache.maven.plugins and org.codehaus.mojo. There are several ways to solve this issue:

• Option A. Edit your Maven settings file (per-user: ${user.home}/.m2/settings.xml; global: ${maven.home}/conf/settings.xml), adding the following:

  <settings>
     ...
     <pluginGroups>
       <pluginGroup>io.github.luiinge</pluginGroup>
     </pluginGroups>
  </settings>

  In case you are using this tool during a CI/CD operation, you will require to edit the settings.xml file during the operation. Check the documentation of your CI/CD platform to find out how to accomplish this.

• Option B. Use the full name of the plugin:

  mvn io.github.luiinge:docsite-maven-plugin:1.5.2:generate

  Be aware that by using this method you cannot define the configuration in the pom, you must pass any configuration data via parameters

• Option C. Bound the execution to one of the build phases and run the predefined goal. For example, using the following:

  <plugin>
    <groupId>io.github.luiinge</groupId>
    <artifactId>docsite-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>1.5.2</version>
    <configuration> ... </configuration>
    <executions>
      <execution>
        <id>generate-site</id>
        <goals>
          <goal>generate</goal>
        </goals>
        <phase>prepare-package</phase>
      </execution>
    </executions>
  </plugin>

  and running

  mvn package

Metrics

Authors

• Luis Iñesta Gelabert | luiinge@gmail.com

Contributions

If you want to contribute to this project, visit the Github project. You can open a new issue / feature request, or make a pull request to consider. If your contribution is worthy, you will be added as a contributor in this very page.

Issue reporting

If you have found any defect in this software, please report it in Github project Issues. There is no guarantee that it would be fixed in the following version, but it would be addressed as soon as possible.