How QuickieDox Works

QuickieDox is a purely vanilla PHP project that leverages the following libraries to display markdown files documentation.

The Installation steps simplifies how to get up and running with QuickieDox.

So, What Is Really Happening Here?

Below is a high level breakdown of what happens when you access the documentation website you just cloned.

First

The index.php file at the root of the project handles vendor autoloading and setting of global variables defined in the .env and config.php files. The routes.php file is then loaded and current url passed to the Router class to serve content for the matching url.

Secondly

The DocController.php file then decides what content to serve. The constructor in the DocController class sets values for the page to be parsed and returned. This will either be the documentation page the user requested (by clicking on a link in the navigation) or the default page defined in the config.php file. Where a page was specified but a corresponding .md file was not found, a default 404.md is set as the page to parse and return.

Below are really the only types of content expected by the controller:

• The documentation home page.
• A 404 page for undefined routes.
• The default documentation page. This is sort of the first page you want to display anytime a user lands on your docs page. This is usually an overview page or installation page. Completely up to you.
• Any other documentation page defined in your navigation.md file. A default 404.md page is displayed if no .md file was found for the link clicked on.

Thirdly

The DocController then hands off the file to be parsed to the Doc class defined in Core/Doc.php. Parsing is handled by league/commonmark and the resulting HTML is returned to the controller, where rendering is handed off to views/reader.php.

Lastly

At the view level, Javascript is then used to:

• Set the page title to the default_page_title defined in the config file plus what was defined in the first <h1> tag of the documentation page being viewed. Example: the title for this page is set to QuickieDox Documentation: How QuickieDox Works. QuickieDox Documentation is what has been defined in the config.php file for default_page_title. How QuickieDox Works is what has been defined as the first <h1> on this page.
• Highlight the current page in the navigation so users knows what page they are viewing.
• Make navigation items collapsible and expandable. No two top level sections can be open at the same time.
• Draw the sub navigation within the documentation.
• Make all external links open in a new window/tab.
• Set the page theme (dark or light).
• Trigger the search box shortcuts.

You are encouraged to just snoop around the code to better understand how documentation content is served. It is not complex at all.