

Show HN: documentation generator based on markdown files in node.js - emixam
http://beautifuldocs.com

======
jeromegn
DocumentUp creator here.

Cool project. Why can't we both collaborate on the same project instead and
make it awesome? You seem to also be using CoffeeScript, eco, express and
marked.

I have a few ideas about "Documentation as a Service", unfortunately I don't
have enough time to devote to this project so it's kind of stagnating right
now. Would appreciate your help.

So what made you create that?

~~~
emixam
I made it because I like to write nice documentation for my projects but I was
tired of docbook. I love markdown too :)

I thought of making a github webhook to automatically generate gh-pages using
it but moved on another project in the meantime.

I like your idea of documentation as a service and I think you have something
great with DocumentUp. We can definitively see if we can do something
together. I'm deep in another project for the next two weeks (at least) but we
can chat on gtalk (maxime.bouroumeau@gmail.com - I'm in GMT+1) if you want, to
see what we could do in the future.

------
ivan_ah
Cool.

Looks very similar idea to <http://documentup.com/>, which in turn is similar
to <http://readthedocs.org>

~~~
tbranyen
Yeah I thought the same thing only DocumentUp has a better design/concept.

------
derrickreimer
This is a nice concept. If you are looking for a full-featured Markdown
documentation product, I just released an app called GuideKit
(<https://guidekit.com>). It's free for open source users. We track document
versions with Git, offer a Markdown editor with live previewing, and every
site has question & answer forums built-in.

~~~
emixam
GuideKit seems really nice. Nice UI. However, one of the reason behind
beautiful docs is to keep the documentation as files. That way, everything is
in git and readable from the shell/github too.

If you add an "import/sync with github" option, this would be really great.

~~~
derrickreimer
Funny you mentioned importing from GitHub - that feature is mostly complete
and should be launching sometime this week or next. I understand where you are
coming from about keeping everything in files, I think that is perfect for
technical users.

I masked some of those details in GuideKit to hopefully attract both technical
and non-technical users (like support teams that don't know how to use git).
But, I plan to offer pull/push capability in the future so you can edit your
GuideKit docs locally with a text editor and push them back up.

Anyhow, nice job with beautifuldocs. I applaud any tools that help/encourage
developers to write nice docs!

------
ypcx
If you just want to preview your Github Markdown files (e.g. your README.md)
locally before committing them into Github, check out my Node.js-based Github
Flavored Markdown Server: <https://github.com/ypocat/gfms> (it uses Github's
CSS and properly parses the "```" code sections).

------
bergie
It would be interesting to do WYSIWYG editing of the Markdown docs here with
<https://github.com/bergie/createMarkdown>

~~~
hsmyers
If by 'here' you mean HN comments and text bodies, I'd support that 100%.
While many would go over-board, I think that the communication quota would
increase given better looking communication.

~~~
bergie
Nope, meant the documentation tool this thread is about :-) Though agreed that
more comprehensive formatting might not hurt HN either

