With Fall term prep underway for many folks here, a quick roundup of what’s new across my open-source Markdown publishing projects, plus some thoughts on which one might fit your situation.
Docsify-This is a free, open-source web app that turns a folder of Markdown files into a styled, responsive website – no accounts, no hosting setup, no build step. Version 2.0.0 was just released, rebuilt on the newly-released Docsify v5, with a new theme system, a refreshed Web Page Builder, and a seamless upgrade path from v1 (existing sites keep their look by default).
My two Grav CMS projects made possible with the Grav Premium Helios Theme (not included) – Course Hub and Open Reader – are also now both built on Grav 2, with the Admin panel included this time around. Course Hub is a course companion site for educators looking for alternatives to proprietary LMS platforms; Open Reader is a web-first platform for open textbooks, course readers, and OER, with all content stored as plain Markdown files.
The Grav Helios Converters – which I introduced here last month – also got a refresh: clearer instructions and a new Preview/Markdown toggle. They turn a Common Cartridge (.imscc) export from Canvas, Moodle, Brightspace, or Blackboard, or a Pressbooks XHTML export, into ready-to-use Markdown files for Course Hub or Open Reader – no Grav or Helios installation needed to try it.
Want to publish right now, no setup? Docsify-This is free to use as-is – paste in a Markdown file or folder and you have a site.
Comfortable with GitHub and want your own repo? A Docsify Starter Kit gives you a self-hosted, version-controlled course site on GitHub Pages, still no build step.
Want a full CMS with an editing interface? Helios Course Hub or Open Reader (or the free Grav Open Source skeletons if you are not interested in the Helios theme specifically) give you browser-based editing via the Grav Admin panel.
Already have content in an LMS or Pressbooks? The Grav Helios Converters give you a fast on-ramp into Helios Course Hub or Helios Open Reader without rebuilding by hand. Worth noting: Docsify-This and the Grav Open Source skeletons are entirely free. The only up-front cost anywhere in this lineup is the Grav Premium Helios theme license (needed for Course Hub/Open Reader), which funds continued development of the open-source Grav CMS.
Comments or questions welcome, especially if you’re weighing options for the fall – happy to help you think through which fits best including other known open-source efforts.
Thank you Paul for providing and maintaining these valuable, open publishing tools. I encourage the community here to give them a closer look, I make some use of Docsify-This and it is so flexible for publishing web content that can be updated dynamically from a single source.
Please reach out to Paul or reply here with questions, interest. He has always been eager to assist.
One addition since posting the roundup above: I’ve just put together a Docsify Common Cartridge Converter, a Docsify-native counterpart to the Grav Helios Converters mentioned above.
Same idea, different destination: upload a Canvas, Moodle, Brightspace, or Blackboard export (.imscc) and get back flat Markdown pages ready to drop into Docsify-This or Docsify , with an auto-generated _sidebar.md, real embedded video, and GitHub-style alert blocks. No Grav or Helios install needed, since it’s aimed at people going the Docsify-This route instead.
It’s been a while I wanted to test Docsify-This. I finally had the opportunity last week. Our blogs, on which we hosted the “Sharing is a challenge” blog post series, are currently down, and my colleagues and I were trying to look for solutions to get the articles back online quickly.
Fortunately, I had copies of each articles as Markdown files. I uploaded them on a Codeberg repo, and created a simple homepage, before generating everything with Docsify-This. Here is the result.
I had great fun working on it, especially as the whole process is quite simple (considering that I’m already familiar with Markdown, and a bit with Codeberg). I especially enjoyed Docsify-This straightforward interface, making it very easy to generate something neat in a just a few clicks, while still allowing more advanced adjustments.
So, thank you very much for your work! It was a great help to us.
Thanks so much for sharing your experience and results with Docsify-This here, @erwan_louerat! Your pages turned out really nicely, and the use of Codeberg was an awesome bonus
One more small addition since the roundup above: Docsify-This now has a live chat built right into the site, so if you’re trying it out and have a question about Docsify-This or open publishing with Markdown, you can ask directly rather than tracking me down elsewhere.
Give it a try at https://docsify-this.net/ – the chat icon is in the lower-right corner. Happy to help, hear feedback, or hear how you’re using Docsify-This.
This is very cool, I went to Docsify-This and started a chat with Paul – who quickly answered. He is using an open source chat platform called Chatwoot
The modern, open source, self-hosted customer support platform. An alternative to Intercom and Zendesk.
Hi @cogdog , or should I call you bold-star-580 as this was your anonymous Chatwoot message nickname
While self-hosting is indeed supported, I am currently trying out the free Hacker plan, with max of 500 conversations per month which should be way more than needed.
For anyone else interested, the overall backend UI is pretty good and it was just a few lines of HTML script to install - note this script is NOT run when Docsify-This renders Markdown pages.
Time will tell if this experimental feature for the Docsify-This web app is worth keeping!
