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Zensical – A modern static site generator built by the Material for MkDocs team

squidfunk.github.io

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Re: Zensical – A modern static site generator built by the Material for MkDocs team

#2
I was excited up until they showed what the new theme looks like. mkdocs-Material was nice in that it didn't have overly rounded corners and over travesties, a shame that custom CSS will be needed to undo the "modernisation". Overall this seems very interesting, especially the performance improvements, just a letdown visually.

Re: Zensical – A modern static site generator built by the Material for MkDocs team

#4
I'm really excited by this development! Material for MkDocs has raised the quality level of so many projects' docs, my own included, by making good navigation the default. It's by far my favorite system to browse as a reader, and use as a project maintainer.

I hope the new theme allows for more customization than the old Material theme. It was really hard to create a unique brand identity within the constraints of Material; it just wasn't built with customization in mind beyond a color. The "modern" theme looks minimal in a way that gives me some hope for this.

Looking forward to kicking the tires on Zensical!

Re: Zensical – A modern static site generator built by the Material for MkDocs team

#5
I use docusaurus and am happy - any reason I should switch to this or does it make more sense if you have a greenfield use case?

I don’t really care how long it takes to build as long as it’s not minutes. Also don’t care about “modern” look whatever that means really. And I have lots of custom components that (I assume?) would be hard to migrate

Re: Zensical – A modern static site generator built by the Material for MkDocs team

#8
It is a very reasonable choice: your plug-in project has grown to a scale you have never anticipated. Therefore, you built your own system from the ground up, one which you have total control over, instead of keeping to rely on someone else's system as you did before. This would make new features and bug fixes more easy to be implemented.

I am also very curious about what the MKDocs future would be like. Material has been the most popular theme for MkDocs. People are not using it because they have chosen MkDocs, but using MkDocs because they have chosen Material. With Zensical promising (some kind of) MkDocs compatibility, there will be fewer reasons to stay on MkDocs instead of migrating to the new project.

Re: Zensical – A modern static site generator built by the Material for MkDocs team

#9

Bold to move away from both of the things that contributed to their success initially (mkdocs, material design) at once.

Material Design have been overhauled twice since the theme has been released. That was not the reason why they succeeded, just a solid foundation which they happened to built from.

Re: Zensical – A modern static site generator built by the Material for MkDocs team

#10

I was excited up until they showed what the new theme looks like. mkdocs-Material was nice in that it didn't have overly rounded corners and over travesties, a shame that custom CSS will be needed to undo the "modernisation". Overall this seems very interesting, especially the performance improvements, just a letdown visually.

Creator of Zensical here! As always, it's a matter of taste. We felt the original look was a little date. You can use the classic Material for MkDocs look with Zensical by adding a single line of configuration[1]. This works because the HTML is exactly the same right now. Most users favor the new look over the old one.

[1]: https://zensical.org/docs/setup/basics/#theme-variant

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