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balupton edited this page Jun 16, 2012 · 11 revisions
title: "DocPad - Streamline your Web Development"
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DocPad

DocPad streamlines your web development stack allowing you to write full featured websites in minutes

Asset Wrapper

DocPad is a command line tool (and node.js module if desired) that sits ontop of your applications assets, providing functionality such as meta data extraction, layout support, rendering, and querying. It has a powerful event based and modular infrastructure, making it easy to extend with plugins. You can already use it with existing plugins to compile a vast amount of pre-processors (such as CoffeeSript, HAML, SASS, LESS, etc), as well as concatinate and minify your files.

All in all, DocPad is absolutely ideal for use in the following ways:

  • as static site generator like Jeykll and Octopress
  • as a build system like Brunch and Grunt
  • as an on the fly rendering engine for your node.js application templates and assets

You can even use pre-built Skeletons by other people to bootstrap your next project! But the most important thing to note here, is that DocPad does a fantastic job at all these use cases do to its amazing agnostic and modular infrastructure.

People love DocPad

Around the web

People simply love using DocPad, they think it is the most fun, and most empowering web development experience they've ever had. Here's some highlights:

<%- @partial('tweet-list',{
	tweets: """
		https://twitter.com/mbrevoort/status/131109168215105537
		https://twitter.com/paul_irish/status/134816120925470720
		https://twitter.com/slace/status/137151760300130304
		https://twitter.com/mattmcmanus/status/142656089224253441
		https://twitter.com/fearthecowboy/status/149572663067672576
		https://twitter.com/doffm/status/187205725334933504
		https://twitter.com/_pwalsh/status/192900090795524096
		https://twitter.com/lukekarrys/status/196126189134422016
		https://twitter.com/jaminrubio/status/210713140688723969
		"""
}) %>

Over other Static Site Generators

There are plenty of static site generators out there. Jekyll, Octopress and Wintersmith to name a few. However, DocPad is the only one that:

  • Lets you mix and match renderers for when you need a little bit of Eco in your CoffeeScript
  • Provides a query engine for parsed documents, allowing your templates to generate custom navigation lists, reference other documents, and even perform advanced searches
  • Supports dynamic documents that re-render on each request, allowing you to cater for the odd dynamic page such as search or a subscription form
  • Lets you extend the server with your own custom routes, so you can setup redirects or even build a full scale web application using docpad as a module
  • Or even deploy live with a node.js docpad server, that can pull in live data, regenerate your website every few minutes, and even provide a REST interface for client-side querying and editing of your documents

All of this stuff is accomplished easily with DocPad and readily available to everyone. We have an amazing community of passionaite people, and a superior tech infrastructure allowing truly awesome stuff to happen. There really is no need to use another static site generator anymore.

Over other Build Systems

Over other Template Rendering Engines

Showcase

Websites

Here's a live showcase of websites already built with DocPad:

Skeletons

If starting from scratch isn't your thing, you can utilise pre-made skeletons shared by the community to bootstrap your next project. Here's a live list of skeletons currently available to you:

Plugins

Here's a live list of plugins you can utilise with DocPad:

Getting DocPad

Installation Instructions

Installing DocPad for the first time? Here's the steps:

  1. Install Node.js
  2. Install DocPad
    [sudo] npm install -g [email protected]
    [sudo] docpad install
  3. If you want Growl notifications on OSX, you'll need to install the growl command line tool

Upgrade DocPad

Upgrading DocPad from an older version to a newer version? Checkout the Upgrade Guide on the Wiki

Using DocPad

As a static site generator

As a build system

As a rendering engine

Documentation

Links

Changelog

License

Thanks