January 2020 Orchid Newsletter: Gaining Traction
Tags: showdev, orchid, jamstack, webdev
Published: 2020-01-23 16:08:40


<p>It's so incredible to see this project grow from a tiny seedling to the maturing sprout it is now. Especially since the
0.18.0 release, I've seen more people try out Orchid and adopt it for their documentation sites, and I'm so incredibly
grateful for each and every download. But this is only the beginning, Orchid still has lots of growing-up to do, so why
don't you come along for the ride and help shape the future of Orchid!</p>
<p>This is the official Orchid newsletter, the newest and best documentation site generator. There is a growing need to
keep the community up-to-date on all the happenings around Orchid, and here I will share Orchid's progress, milestones,
and future plans! Follow along with this series to stay on top of Orchid's newest features, track adoption on Github,
and see who's using Orchid!</p>
<h2 id="on-github"><a href="#on-github" id="on-github" class="anchor"></a>On Github</h2>
<p>Orchid has been growing so much since December's 0.18.0 release! Its now at 313 stars and version 0.18.2, with more
downloads, new sites, and issues created than ever before! And it's all thanks to this wonderful community of
individuals believing in a better way to do documentation, so thank you all!</p>
<p>The holidays were fairly quiet in terms of new releases and contributions, but <a href="https://github.com/tomb50">Tom Beadman</a>
helped immensely with improving the asciidoctor integration. A small PR with huge impact for improving the
quality-of-life for Asciidoctor fans, which now includes support for <code>include::[]</code> macros!</p>
<p>I also merged work <a href="https://github.com/DanySK">Danilo Pianini</a> had done for improving the YouTube tag to support
aspect-ratios instead of fixed sized.</p>
<h2 id="whats-new"><a href="#whats-new" id="whats-new" class="anchor"></a>What's New?</h2>
<p>Now that 0.18.0 is released, I've been able to work on some smaller features I've been wanting to support for a while. I
had to restrain myself from working on them for 0.18.0 to prevent feature-creep, but it's been nice finally getting to
add the following features:</p>
<ul>
<li>The <a href="https://orchid.run/plugins/orchidbible">OrchidBible</a> plugin has been broken for some time, as the APIs driving it had been decommissioned.
I have removed the previously-broken <code>bible()</code> function, which pre-rendered Bible verses, and replaced it with a new
<a href="https://faithlife.com/products/reftagger">Faithlife Reftagger</a> meta-component, which will automatically create
popups for all Bible verses it finds on the page!</li>
<li>Support for <a href="https://mermaid-js.github.io/mermaid">Mermaid JS</a> markup has been added to the
<a href="https://orchid.run/plugins/orchiddiagrams">OrchidDiagrams</a> plugin. As Mermaid is a javascript library, support is added through a meta-component
instead of using pre-rendered markup like PlantUML.</li>
<li>The <code>youtube</code> template tag in <a href="https://orchid.run/plugins/orchidwritersblocks">OrchidWritersBlocks</a> can now display videos of a given aspect-ratio,
making them better-suited for responsive designs.</li>
<li><a href="https://orchid.run/plugins/orchidchangelog">OrchidChangelog</a> now supports single-file changelogs, such as the
<a href="https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/">Keep A Changelog format</a> format.</li>
</ul>
<h1 id="in-progress"><a href="#in-progress" id="in-progress" class="anchor"></a>In Progress</h1>
<p>Supporting include macros for Asciidoctor was a huge step forward, but there's still work to be done to improve that
integration, and you can expect more Asciidoctor improvements in the coming weeks, with <code>image::[]</code> being the next
target.</p>
<p>In addition to a few more quality-of-life improvements planned for the near-future, I've begun work on a new
<code>OrchidSnippets</code> plugin! More details will come in a future post, but I'd love to get your feedback and suggestions for
its implementation and usage in <a href="https://github.com/orchidhq/Orchid/issues/293">this issue</a> on GitHub!</p>
<hr>
<p>Are you interested in getting started with Orchid? There simply is no better way to manage all the documentation for
your project, and I'd love to help you get set up!</p>
<p>If you have an open-source project that needs docs, are building a new portfolio, or are building any other kind of
static site, I want to work with you to get you set up with Orchid! Comment on this post, send me a PM here on Dev.to,
reach out on <a href="https://gitter.im/JavaEden/Orchid">Gitter</a>, or <a href="https://www.caseyjbrooks.com/contact/">contact me here</a>
and I will be with you every step of the way.</p>
<p>And as always, let me know if you start using Orchid so I can feature you in the next update!</p>