spacesanjeet 8 days ago

I will try this out. I am on a hunt for a way to render markdown files into html code in a way that supports the existing structure of the webpage. For example, if I have a static webpage ready from scratch using HTML and CSS, would I be then able to post blogs using markdown to html in just a corner of the site?

  • lioeters 8 days ago

    Next.js is an all-encompassing framework, so your existing static site would need to be placed in its `public` directory. Even then, the React-based frontend will take dominance.

    For your use case I'd recommend a command-line tool that converts Markdown files from a given folder and outputs it to a corner of your existing site. There are implementations in various languages, so you can choose according to preference.

  • dtedesco1 7 days ago

    Given you have an existing website, it might be easier for you to add Markdown support to your site through a static site generator or server-side conversion step.

    Or you can even use a Markdown-to-HTML tool (I believe pandoc has this feature) to convert the pages yourself before posting. That's a bit more manual but wouldn't require changing your current structure.

    Anyway, if you end up using boilerplate, let me know what you think!

fulldecent2 8 days ago

Thanks for sharing. Can you say why you start with Next?

There are other tools that /just/ do Markdown builds like parceljs.org But with your approach you can actually be used to do more than that.

  • dtedesco1 7 days ago

    Three main reasons, two functional and one practical:

    1. Built-in MDX support means you can seamlessly mix Markdown and React components. (I previously had some trouble with the @mdx-js/react library and was in the market for more native solutions.)

    2. Next.js makes it pretty easy to do modern web stuff, like client/server components and Tailwind/DaisyUI styling.

    3. With Vercel spending so much getting YouTubers to create general Next.js tutorials, I found it very easy to get this set up.

    If you're dealing with purely static Markdown content, I would recommend something simpler.

    • leerob 7 days ago

      (I work at Vercel) We spend $0 on YouTube, just FYI as I sometimes see this sentiment.