mkbook is my simpler alternative to mdbook which is a great tool, but for which I really dislike some of the decisions they took, such as relying on javascript for highlighting and navigation, and including a lot of bells and whistles such as javascript-based search.

This tool aims to work somewhat similarly to mdbook, but is generally intended to be a more minimal alternative that is customized more towards my needs and desires than anything else.

If you’re not familiar with mdbook, mkbook is a tool to convert a collection of Markdown files into a static website / book which can be published online. It was created to help me write documentation with minimum fuss while presenting it in an easy-to-consume manner.

mkbook may be installed using Cargo (cargo install --force --path . in the mkbook repo directory), and after that it presents a command-line interface:

$ mkbook
mkbook 0.1.0
Kenton Hamaluik <kenton@hamaluik.ca>


USAGE:
    mkbook [SUBCOMMAND]

FLAGS:
    -h, --help       
            Prints help information

    -V, --version    
            Prints version information


SUBCOMMANDS:
    build    build the book
    help     Prints this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)
    init     initialize a mkbook directory tree

Currently, only the build subcommand does anything (it builds your book!), but this functionality is still WIP:

$ mkbook build --help
mkbook-build 
build the book

USAGE:
    mkbook build [OPTIONS]

FLAGS:
    -h, --help       Prints help information
    -V, --version    Prints version information

OPTIONS:
    -i, --in <in>      an optional directory to take the book sources from [default: src]
    -o, --out <out>    an optional directory to render the contents into [default: book]