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About Zen

Documentation framework

This web site was built using Zensical, a modern, open-source documentation framework employing a rewrite of the Material theme on top of static site generator MkDocs. Examples of major sites that use Material for MkDocs can be found on the GitHub project page linked under Trusted by ….

Page content is written in an extended version of the popular markdown text markup language called Python-Markdown. This video guide (link) to standard and extended markdown is perhaps The Only Markdown Crash Course You Will Ever Need.

References

Much of my work here was inspired by James Willett’s YouTube video Build + Deploy a Documentation Portal from Scratch. He has a companion web site revealing the underlying details: Getting Started with Material for MkDocs.

Another useful reference is Techdox, which makes extensive use of the many features of MkDocs and the Material theme, and serves as a resourceful tutorial because all of the code for the site can be examined on GitHub.

Showcase of MkDocs and Material Features demonstrates the built-in formatting and display capabilities provided by the MkDocs Material theme plus several Markdown extensions.

Versions

This site is available in two versions, built by Zensical running in a Docker container. Page files are located in our /opt/ web space on Debian Linux, presented by FrankenPHP’s built-in Caddy HTML server: