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Alto

Alto is a minimal and modern template for static documentation sites.

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Alto is a minimal and modern Hugo template for static documentation sites, created by and optimized for CloudCannon. Browse through a live demo.

Designed initially for open-source software, Alto has many built-in features to aid both site users and documentation writers:

  • Built-in static search with Pagefind;
  • Twelve pre-configured Hugo shortcodes, including diff syntax highlighting, GitHub Gist embeds, and tree diagram formatter;
  • Light/dark modes, with configurable color palettes;
  • Easily configurable navigation and footer content;
  • Flexible grouping options for docs pages;
  • Automatic anchor links to subheadings;
  • Optional announcement banner;
  • Styled with Sass;
  • Optimized for editing and publishing on CloudCannon.

Showcase

CloudCannon uses Alto as the documentation site template for our own open-source tools. Take a look at these sample sites to see what's possible with static documentation on Alto:

Expectations

Dependencies

  • This template expects alpinejs to be installed by the site.
  • This template expects Pagefind to run after a site build.

General info

Required information can be seen in the data/meta.yml

  • project_name
    • Used for SEO tags, alt text, and similar places
  • default_og_image
    • Self explanatory
  • favicon
    • set the path to the favicon files

Writing documentation

This site template is intended to be used as a documentation site with a landing page.

  • content/_index.md should be used for the homepage.
  • content/docs/_index.md represents the /docs/ page.
  • All other pages in docs will live at their respective path.
    • i.e. content/docs/this/that.md represents /docs/this/that/

Front matter

  • title
    • Used as the page h1, and in page SEO tags
  • nav_title
    • Used as a shorter title variant in the side navigation
  • nav_section
    • Determines which heading this page should be placed under in the side navigation
    • A heading value being referenced here creates it, they are not stored elsewhere
  • weight
    • Determines the order in which pages appear in the side navigation (lower is higher)

The site side-navigation only supports one level of nesting, and is configured via the nav_section front matter.

The top-level groups are in the order that they are first encountered after sorting all pages by weight. Lowering a page's weight may move the nav_section for that page up the hierarchy.

Pages can be placed outside of a group (alongside the homepage) by assigning them the nav_section of Root.

Shortcodes

Diffcode

This template provides a diffcode shortcode that can provide source highlighting alongside diff highlighting. This shortcode should wrap a markdown code block that has a tagged language. For example, from the pagefind docs:

{{< diffcode >}}
```js
new PagefindUI({
    element: "#search",
+    mergeIndex: [{
+        bundlePath: "https://docs.example.com/_pagefind"
+    }]
})
```
{{< /diffcode >}}

The code block will be rendered with the leading + removed from each line, and those lines will then be highlighted green to represent a diff.

Tree

This template provides a tree shortcode that can help render an ASCII directory tree structure. The given char (default >) will be replaced with the appropriate box drawing character from the supported set. For example:

{{% tree %}}
package.json
_includes/
>> _layouts/
>  >> default.liquid
>  >> page.liquid
>> file.liquid
_site/
>> index.html
{{% /tree %}}

Will output:

package.json
_includes/
├─ _layouts/
│  ├─ default.liquid
│  └─ page.liquid
└─ file.liquid
_site/
└─ index.html

The tree shortcode delegates its output to diffcode automatically, so lines can be prepended with a + character to represent new files.

Page links

All headings on doc pages will have a clickable hash link inserted in the left gutter.

data/banner.yml can be provided to show a banner on the top of each page:

  • enable_banner
    • Set to true to show the banner
  • html
    • HTML (placed inside of a <p> tag) to show in the banner. Supports adding alpine directives.
  • id
    • An ID used to store that the banner has been closed in localStorage. Make sure to change this when adding a new banner so that users who dismissed the last one will see it.
  • show_until
    • A date timestamp, after which the banner should not be shown. This is useful for time-sensitive banners, such as a notice about a new release.

Alto is a minimal and modern Eleventy template for static documentation sites, created by and optimized for CloudCannon. Browse through a live demo.

Designed initially for open-source software, Alto has many built-in features to aid both site users and documentation writers:

  • Built-in static search with Pagefind;
  • Eleven pre-configured shortcodes, including diff syntax highlighting, GitHub Gist embeds, and tree diagram formatter;
  • Light/dark modes, with configurable color palettes;
  • Easily configurable navigation and footer content;
  • Flexible grouping options for docs pages;
  • Automatic anchor links to subheadings;
  • Optional announcement banner;
  • Styled with Sass;
  • Optimized for editing and publishing on CloudCannon.

Showcase

CloudCannon uses Alto as the documentation site template for our own open-source tools. Take a look at these sample sites to see what's possible with static documentation on Alto:

Expectations

Dependencies

  • This template expects alpinejs to be installed by the site.
  • This template expects Pagefind to run after a site build.

General info

Required information can be seen in the data/meta.yml

  • project_name
    • Used for SEO tags, alt text, and similar places
  • default_og_image
    • Self explanatory
  • favicon
    • set the path to the favicon files

Writing documentation

This site template is intended to be used as a documentation site with a landing page.

  • pages/index.md should be used for the homepage.
  • docs/_index.md represents the /docs/ page.
  • All other pages in docs will live at their respective path.
    • i.e. docs/this/that.md represents /docs/this/that/

Front matter

  • title
    • Used as the page h1, and in page SEO tags
  • eleventyNavigation > key
    • Used as a shorter title variant in the side navigation
  • tags
    • Determines which heading this page should be placed under in the side navigation
    • 'page' refers to top level pages and will not display a category heading in the navigation
  • order
    • Determines the order in which pages appear in the side navigation (lower is higher)

The site side-navigation only supports one level of nesting, and is configured via the eleventyNavigation front matter.

The top-level groups (tags: 'page') are in the order that they are first encountered after sorting all pages by order. Lowering a page's weight may move the eleventyNavigation for that page up the hierarchy.

Pages can be placed outside of a group (alongside the homepage) by assigning them the tags of page.

Shortcodes

Diffcode

This template provides a diffcode shortcode that can provide source highlighting alongside diff highlighting. This shortcode should wrap a markdown code block that has a tagged language. For example, from the pagefind docs:

{% capture content %}
```js
new PagefindUI({
    element: "#search",
+    mergeIndex: [{
+        bundlePath: "https://docs.example.com/_pagefind"
+    }]
})
```
{% endcapture %}
{% diffcode content %}

The code block will be rendered with the leading + removed from each line, and those lines will then be highlighted green to represent a diff.

Tree

This template provides a tree shortcode that can help render an ASCII directory tree structure. The given char (default >) will be replaced with the appropriate box drawing character from the supported set. For example:

{% capture treecontent %}
package.json
_includes/
>> _layouts/
>  >> default.liquid
>  >> page.liquid
>> file.liquid
_site/
>> index.html
{% endcapture %}{% tree treecontent %}

Will output:

package.json
_includes/
├─ _layouts/
│  ├─ default.liquid
│  └─ page.liquid
└─ file.liquid
_site/
└─ index.html

The tree shortcode delegates its output to diffcode automatically, so lines can be prepended with a + character to represent new files.

Page links

All headings on doc pages will have a clickable hash link inserted in the left gutter.

data/banner.yml can be provided to show a banner on the top of each page:

  • enable_banner
    • Set to true to show the banner
  • html
    • HTML (placed inside of a <p> tag) to show in the banner. Supports adding alpine directives.
  • id
    • An ID used to store that the banner has been closed in localStorage. Make sure to change this when adding a new banner so that users who dismissed the last one will see it.
  • show_until
    • A date timestamp, after which the banner should not be shown. This is useful for time-sensitive banners, such as a notice about a new release.