Build and deploy beautiful documentation sites that grow with you

Build and deploy beautiful documentation sites that grow with you

Compilers

Orchid includes native support for compiling Markdown, Asciidoc, Pebble, SCSS, PlantUML diagrams, and more.


Most content in Orchid comes from a file in your local filesystem. While each plugin is free to do whatever they want to generate their pages, it is common for plugins to base their internal content models around the filesystem, and as such, the content from most plugins is written in a very similar way because the content for each entry works the same.

Overview

Generally speaking, the file's extension is used to determine how a file is processed, and the compiler processing the file determines the output file extension. Here are some examples:

  • .md -> .html: Markdown
  • .peb -> .html: Pebble
  • .scss -> .css: Sass, (SCSS syntax)
  • .sass -> .css: Sass, (Sass syntax)
  • .ad -> .html: AsciiDoc (requires OrchidAsciidoc plugin)
  • .uml -> .svg: PlantUML (requires OrchidDiagrams plugin)

Orchid does not make a distinction between 'template' languages (like Pebble) or 'content' languages (like Markdown), As a result, the content for your pages can be written in any language you like.

Custom Output Extension

The file itself is able to override the default output extension by having a filename in a format like filename.output.input, such as contact.php.peb. This tells Orchid to use the .php extension instead of the normal .html extension from the Pebble compiler. The result is index.php.

Ignored Output Extensions

There are some filenames which adhere to the above format that should not be used as the output extension. This is common for compiled and minified CSS or Javascript, which is often named something like styles.min.css.

You can set certain extensions to be ignored when the filename is in that format. By default, min is already ignored, but you may add your own ignored extensions as an array in the ignoredOutputExtensions option in config.yml:

# config.yml
...
services:
  compilers:
    ignoredOutputExtensions:
      - 'min'
      - 'debug'

Precompilers

Typically files are processed as a compiler of their file extension. For example, a file with the .md extension will be processed as Markdown.

But before it is processed as Markdown, if it has a Front Matter header, it will be precompiled as Pebble. You can use the full power of Pebble templates to add additional dynamic content to otherwise static content.

---
---

# {{ page.title }} --> # Custom Page Title

Any variables set in the Front Matter may be accessed as variables in Pebble.

---
title: Custom Page Title
foo: 'bar'
---

# {{ foo }} --> # bar

There are a number of predefined variables that are available on every page:

  • page: refers to the current Page object
  • theme: refers to the theme rendering the current page
  • site: refers contains basic info about your Orchid site
  • data: all custom data loaded from data.yml and data/ files

If you need to use a Front Matter header but don't want to precompile that page, you can set precompile: false in the Front Matter:

---
precompile: false
---

# {{ page.title }} --> # {{ page.title }}

Alternatively, you may choose to use another language as your precompiler language of choice. This may be done individually by a single page by setting precompileAs to the desired language extension in its Front Matter, or for all pages by setting the defaultPrecompilerExtension option in your config.yml:

---
precompileAs: 'html'
---

# {{ page.title }} --> # {{ page.title }}

# config.yml
...
services:
  compilers:
    defaultPrecompilerExtension: 'html'