Why GitBook?
Requirements:
- Easy maintenance
- Git/file system support
- In theory, easy migration to different platforms
- Doesn't require me to have internet access
- I can easily do a
grep
orack
locally to find information. - Markdown support
-
- Easy styling
Pros:
- Nice UI
- Decent free Basic plan
- Includes one free private book
- No need to always use command line
- Custom domains
- Google Analytics support
- Bi-directional support
- Renaming pages appears to maintain old URLs
- Only if it is not moved to a different folder
- Works decently on my 11” iPad Pro 2018
- Browsing is fine on quarter, half or full screen
- Can’t use Safari’s split screen mode for editing
- Require’s using full screen, sad
Cons:
- Organizing a lot of pages is difficult, even if nested
- At 59 pages, it was already difficult to reorganize
- I may have to organize things on the filesystem/markdown
- I could potentially move to a second GitBook, but I like everything organized in one for now
- Long pages can be very confusing
- Better to break out the content into different pages
- Increases the problem of organizing a lot of pages
- Content is not really "static"
- No sitemap.xml
Dislikes:
- Doesn't use same header shortcuts as Google Docs
Limitations:
- Single theme
- I don't really mind it. It's a decent but most importantly, usable theme.
- No offline read/write support
- Workaround is to download the repository
- Moving pages doesn't redirect to new URL
- For renaming pages in the same directory structure, the old url still works
- For moving pages into a different directory, the old url will not work
- I tried to compile a version using their
gitbook-cli
tool but it failed onnotes/javascript/fetch.md
Facts:
- Assets retain their filename
Previously using Phenomic. cons: Fully manual.
Other notable GitBooks:
Other
Besides the standard Markdown features.
- Incomplete Task
- Completed Task
Info
Warning
Danger
Success
First Tab
Second Tab
Tabs
Tree structure doesn't work so well for content which can exist in multiple branches.
I put everything in a single table and use tags.
Pros:
- WYSIWYG
Cons:
- Exporting isn't easy
- No history
- No automatic export
Last modified 2yr ago