Previewing

1. Build and serve
2. Theming
3. Export to Markdown: export:plaintext

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The preview runs from a clone of the repository only, because it serves files from the clone’s own public/ directory. The global syncjar command refuses serve, generate:courses and build:preview.

Build and serve

npm run build:preview      # pull, then generate the preview index
npm run serve              # http://localhost:3000

build:preview is pull followed by generate:courses. After editing files you only need the second:

npm run generate:courses

The preview lists every course and lesson in COURSE_CONTENT_PATH. Each lesson is rendered in an iframe as a full HTML document, so your Skilljar theme’s styles and scripts apply as they would in Skilljar. Set PORT to use another port.

Theming

Copy preview.config.example.json to preview.config.json at the root of the clone, and fill in your Skilljar domain and theme files:

{
  "baseURL": "https://courses.example.com",
  "theme": {
    "css": ["https://courses.example.com/path/to/theme.css"],
    "js": ["https://courses.example.com/path/to/theme.js"]
  }
}

The preview server injects these into each lesson when it renders it. preview.config.json is gitignored, so your URLs stay out of the repository. Leave the lists empty, or skip the file, to preview unstyled content.

Export to Markdown: export:plaintext

syncjar export:plaintext

Writes one Markdown file per course to courses-plaintext/ in the current directory: its lessons in order, each with its content converted to text. That’s useful for proofreading, search, or feeding a course to other tools.