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How we're rethinking navigation |
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Adoption is growing fast – in January, we crossed 100,000 monthly downloads and began conceptual work on making navigation modular, one of the most requested topics from our roadmap. We also held our first open video call in Zensical Spark, in which we presented a draft of the upcoming module system – purposefully designed to dramatically reduce complexity and simplify extensibility. Read on to learn more. |
Highlights |
Modular navigation |
A seamless authoring experience is our top priority as we design modular navigation in Zensical Spark. We're focusing on making it easy and intuitive to create and manage complex navigation hierarchies that smoothly adapt as your project grows. ZAP 005, which outlines the mechanisms of how we intend to make this work, was published today, and is now open for discussion. |
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How modular navigation will work in Zensical
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This brings similar functionality as popular MkDocs plugins like awesome-nav and literate-nav, but goes further by reimagining them for Zensical's architecture and the heterogeneous requirements of our professional users. We've also published ZAP 004, which forms the theoretical foundation for modular navigation. |
Module system |
Our design work on the module system is shaping up: the first draft shows how much simpler it is to build and maintain Zensical modules compared to MkDocs plugins, with significantly less code – up to 90% reduction in some cases. |
This is why we're not just porting existing MkDocs plugins, but rethinking them to perfectly fit Zensical's architecture through ZAPs. We'll be creating an automatic mapping from MkDocs plugin configurations to Zensical modules, so your existing MkDocs projects will continue to build, and you'll be able to migrate effortlessly. |
Cross-references in mkdocstrings |
As promised, we shipped support for mkdocstrings cross-references in 0.0.17, as well as support for objects.inv in 0.0.19. This brings Zensical to feature parity with MkDocs for API documentation workflows. |
In other news |
- We released five new versions in January, improving on feature parity.
- We dramatically reduced memory usage for our mkdocstrings integration.
- ZRX has seen four new versions, improving performance and modularity.
- Bug fixes have become routine as our workflows continue to mature.
- Increasing stability allows us to focus on the big topics from our roadmap.
- Our community on Discord is growing steadily, approaching 400 members.
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What's next |
We expect to release the first version of the module system in the coming weeks as part of a preview build in Zensical Spark. The module system will allow us to quickly achieve feature parity, as it dramatically simplifies adding new functionality to Zensical. |
Modular navigation will see continued development as we refine the authoring experience based on feedback of our members in Zensical Spark. |
Your voice matters |
Our community is growing daily, and we're overwhelmed by the positive feedback we receive about Zensical. Here's one of our favorite messages from last month: |
Converted a project from MkDocs to Zensical - a bit of fiddling with the config file, but gosh Zensical is fast.
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— Greg Wilson
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Do you have questions, suggestions, or anything else on your mind? Is there anything you would like to see in future issues of Zensical Monthly? Hit reply and let us know! |
Thank you for building with Zensical! |
