Installation
Infusion is built using the static site engine, Hugo, and NPM. The codebase is available to download on Github. Let’s get set up step-by-step.
Install Hugo
First you need to install Hugo globally.
OSX users
If you are a Mac user and have Homebrew on your system, installing Hugo is simple:
brew install hugo
Alternatively, you can manually install Hugo from a package. You can verify the installation was successful by typing:
hugo version
Windows users
Installing on Windows is a bit more involved than on OSX. The authors of Hugo provide a guide with instructions for technical and less technical users.
It’s also best you install a Windows Subsystem for running Linux, and therefore bash (Infusion incorporates some bash commands in its scripts). Microsoft offer a complete guide.
Install Node & NPM
It is likely you already have Node and NPM installed on your system. If so, you can skip this step. Otherwise, refer to NPM’s own guide, which includes a video tutorial.
Get the files
Infusion is hosted on Github. To start using it, you’ll need to get the files from there. If you are comfortable with the command line, just fork the github.com/heydon/infusion repository, then do a git clone
to your local system. Replace [your username]
in the following:
git clone https://github.com/[your username]/infusion.git
If the command line is not your thing, fork github.com/heydon/infusion and choose Open in Desktop from Clone or download (see figure 1, below).
Once you have your local copy of the files, move to the root of that folder and in your terminal run an npm installation:
npm install
Now it’s time to consult the Library setup pattern.
Library setup
By now, you should have followed the Installation instructions. You should have Hugo and Node installed, and a local copy of a forked version of Infusion. You should also have run npm install
in the root of that codebase.
“Cleaning” the content folder
Before you can start documenting patterns, there are a few things still to do in order to get set up. At the moment, your version of Infusion is a facsimile of the original, containing all this documentation content. We want to delete that content and replace it with some starter content. There’s a simple clean
command for this.
npm run clean
This will leave your content
folder with just an _index.md
file and a patterns
folder containing a single demonstration pattern file. Find out more about these in Library structure.
The config file
You’ll also want to name your library and configure one or two other things in the config.toml
file that’s found at the root of your project. Here’s how that file looks:
languageCode = "en-us"
title = "Infusion"
baseURL = "https://heydon.github.io/infusion/"
theme = "infusion"
[params]
description = "Documentation for the **Infusion** pattern library builder. This documentation is constructed using the builder itself."
codePenUser = "Heydon"
- title — This is the library’s name, like “Megacorp 5000 Pattern Library”. You don’t have to include the term “pattern library” if you don’t want to. For Infusion’s own version of Infusion, the
title
is, naturally, Infusion :-) - baseURL — This is the root of the live site. Typically you will publish the site to Github Pages, so this should be the base URL for your Github Pages site.
- theme — This is the theme the library is using. Don’t change this from “infusion”.
- description — This is a short description of the library and comes under the logo. You can include markdown syntax here, like **Infusion** in the above example for making the name of the library bold.
- codePenUser — If you want to embed codePens in your pattern files, you need to supply a codePen username here.
The Web App Manifest
Infusion libraries work as progressive web applications, meaning users can save them to their home screen and read them offline. The web app manifest, found at the root of the static
folder defines names and icons for the app. You’ll probably want to open /static/manifest.json
and personalize the name
and short_name
values.
{
"name": "Infusion Pattern Library Docs",
"short_name": "Infusion Docs",
"icons": [
{...
Including a logo
In the images/static
folder, you’ll find a logo.svg
file. Replace this file with your own company or project logo. Currently, only the SVG is supported this easily because SVG the superior format for logotypes. However, if you must use a different format, you can open up the themes/infusion/layouts/_default/baseof.html
file and edit the image reference:
<a class="logo" href="/" aria-label="{{ .Site.Title }} pattern library home page">
<img src="{{ "images/logo.svg" | absURL }}" alt="">
</a>
Now that your logo’s in place, everything should be ready. Where next? You can learn about Library structure to help you get writing, or find out how to serve the library locally and on Github Pages in Serving.
Serving
Serving locally
While you’re creating content for your library, you’ll probably want to see what the finished product looks like. Fortunately, Infusion is easy to serve locally using the serve
command:
npm run serve
This will serve your working library from localhost:1313
. Whenever you make changes to your library’s files, the site will automatically rebuild. No need to refresh the web page!
Publishing on Github Pages
Infusion creates a /docs
folder containing the latest version of your library whenever you do an npm run build
or a git commit
. This folder can be made the source for your Github Pages site by selecting it under Settings → Github Pages → Source in the web interface.
Then, whenever you push to master, you will also be updating the site found at your Github Pages URL.
This URL will be in the following format:
[your user name].github.io/[your library repo name]
You’ll also need to add it to your config.toml
file as the baseURL
value. See Library setup for more information.
Printing
Infusion’s output site includes a one-page Print version of the generated library, available at /print-version
. So, if your library base URL is https://yourName.github.io/your-library
, you can print the whole library — to PDF if wanted — from the following address:
https://yourName.github.io/your-library/print-version
Library structure
Before you can set about documenting patterns, you need to know where everything goes. The simplest folder structure looks like this:
- content
- _index.md
- print-version.md
- patterns
- name-of-my-pattern.md
- name-of-my-other-pattern.md
- /content - This is where all of your content lives. You won’t need to visit any other folders very frequently.
- _index.md — This is the content file for your home page.
- print-version.md — This is a placeholder for the single-page / print-friendly version of you library. Leave this file as it is.
- /patterns — This is the folder where individual pattern files are kept.
Subsections
You may have noticed that this site’s navigation is divided partly into subsections, with labels like “Writing”. Infusion (or, rather, Hugo) allows you to create such subsections by simply nesting folders under the /patterns
folder. In the following example, I have a subsection about different types of “popup” pattern.
- content
- _index.md
- patterns
- name-of-my-pattern.md
- name-of-my-other-pattern.md
- popups
- _index.md
- popup-menu.md
- tooltips.md
Now that you know where to put everything, it’s time to talk about how to actually write individual patterns. Don’t worry, it’s pretty straightforward. Turn to Markdown & metadata.
Markdown & metadata
In Infusion, design patterns are documented using markdown. To create a new pattern file, just add a file with the .md
extension to the /patterns
folder. It’s recommended you use “kebab case” to name the file ( words separated by hyphens). For example, a pattern with the title “Menu button” should probably have the filename menu-button
. Then you get a nice clean URL: username.github.io/your-library/patterns/menu-button
.
If you’re not familiar with writing markdown, there are a number of tutorials available. One of the best is Mastering Markdown offered by Github. There’s also a nice cheatsheet here.
The metadata
Like many static site generators, Hugo lets you add metadata to its markdown files. Hugo’s brand of metadata is called TOML (although YAML is also accepted). The only thing you have to put in the TOML is a title
— like this:
+++
title = "Menu button"
+++
Tags
If you like, you can also tag the pattern so that it turns up in lists of similar content. You add tags in an array format. Note that all the TOML data is found at the top of the markdown file, between the +++
lines.
+++
title = "Menu button"
tags = ["interactive", "popup", "javascript"]
+++
This will create links to pages listing content tagged with the same terms using the URL schema /tag/[tag name]
. Some example tags links are provided for this page, which you can see listed under the main heading.
Weight
By default, patterns are listed in alphabetical order. However, sometimes you might like to change the order around. This is possible by adding a weight
parameter. To make my menu button pattern appear at the top of its subsection, I would give it a weight
of 1
:
+++
title = "Menu button"
tags = ["interactive", "popup", "javascript"]
weight = 1
+++
Expandable sections
In some cases, where there is a lot of content, it’s helpful to collapse certain sections. That way, readers get an overview of what’s in the content and can choose where to focus in. Infusion provides a shortcode method for creating expandable sections which generates accessible markup using aria-expanded
.
The expandable
shortcode takes three parameters:
- label — This is the label for the the section heading.
- level — This is the heading level (e.g.
level="2"
for a<h2>
) that will contain the label. If you omit a level parameter, no heading is used; it’s just a button. - open — Include this and give it a value of “true” or “yes” to make the section expanded on page load.
Here’s what the code might look like for a simple expandable section containing markdown:
{{% expandable label="A section of dummy text" level="2" %}}
Here is some markdown including [a link](https://twitter.com/heydonworks). Donec erat est, feugiat a est sed, aliquet pharetra ipsum. Vivamus in arcu leo. Praesent feugiat, purus a molestie ultrices, libero massa iaculis ante, sit amet accumsan leo eros vel ligula.
{{% /expandable %}}
Let’s look at what that outputs:
Successive collapsible sections fit snugly together. The second of the following two has open="true"
.
Unfortunately, it is not currently possible to include shortcodes inside other shortcodes, using the “%
” notation (which is designated for markdown content). If you use the angle brackets notation (illustrated below) it is possible, but markdown will no longer be permitted. You will have to code HTML inside such a section manually.
{{<expandable label="A section of dummy text" level="2">}}
<p>Here is a pattern reference shortcode: {{% pattern "Writing inline demos" %}}.</p>
{{</expandable>}}
Notes & warnings
Infusion acknowledges that simple markdown is limiting when it comes to writing compelling documentation, so it provides a number of “shortcodes”. Shortcodes offer a simple syntax for including rich content. For example, Infusion provides shortcodes for including notes and warnings.
Notes
You may wish to pick out some content in your pattern’s documentation as a note — an aside to the main thrust of the pattern’s description. This is possible using the following syntax:
{{% note %}}
This is a note! It's something the reader may like to know about but is supplementary to the main content. Use notes when something may be interesting but not critical.
{{% /note %}}
Notes render like this:
Warnings
Warnings are like notes, but with more urgency.
{{% warning %}}
This is a warning! It's about something the reader should be careful to do or to avoid doing. Use warnings when something could go wrong.
{{% /warning %}}
Warnings render like this:
References
Cross-references
Infusion provides an easy mechanism to cross-reference patterns, by title, using the pattern
shortcode. For example, I can reference the Notes & warnings pattern. Here’s what the markdown looks like, including the shortcode:
I can reference the {{% pattern "Notes & warnings" %}} pattern here.
This saves you having to worry about pathing and decorates the generated link with a bookmark icon, identifying the link as a pattern reference visually.
WCAG References
WCAG 2.0 is the de facto standard for accessible interfaces. When writing about inclusive design patterns, sometimes you’ll want to refer to WCAG to highlight which success criteria the pattern meets.
Instead of having to copy and paste content and links to WCAG, Infusion provides a shortcode mechanism that lets you simply list the success criteria by number:
{{% wcag include="1.2.1, 1.3.1, 4.1.2" %}}
This generates a list of references that includes the names of each criterion and links to them directly. Like this:
- 2.1.1 Keyboard (level A)
- 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (level A)
Full descriptions
Sometimes, you’ll want to include the full descriptions of the success criteria inline. This is possible by setting descriptions
to true
:
{{% wcag include="1.3.1, 4.1.2" descriptions="true" %}}
Here’s the more verbose output:
- 2.1.1 Keyboard (level A): All functionality of the content is operable through a keyboard interface without requiring specific timings for individual keystrokes, except where the underlying function requires input that depends on the path of the user's movement and not just the endpoints
- 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (level A): For all user interface components (including but not limited to: form elements, links and components generated by scripts), the name and role can be programmatically determined; states, properties, and values that can be set by the user can be programmatically set; and notification of changes to these items is available to user agents, including assistive technologies.
Inclusive Design Principle references
Some inclusive design concepts are not reducible to success or fail criteria. This is why The Paciello Group wrote the Inclusive Design Principles. These can be listed by name.
{{% principles include="Add value, Be consistent" descriptions="true" %}}
Here’s the output with descriptions="true"
:
-
Be consistent
:
Use familiar conventions and apply them consistently.
Familiar interfaces borrow from well-established patterns. These should be used consistently within the interface to reinforce their meaning and purpose. This should be applied to functionality, behavior, editorial, and presentation. You should say the same things in the same way and users should be able to do the same things in the same way.
-
Add value
:
Consider the value of features and how they improve the experience for different users.
Features should add value to the user experience by providing efficient and diverse ways to find and interact with content. Consider device features such as voice, geolocation, camera and vibration API's, and how integration with connected devices or a second screen could provide choice.
Tables of contents
Pattern pages in Infusion that have two or more subheadings — <h2>
s — automatically get a table of contents: a list of links to the main subsections for the page. This feature is made accessible as a navigation region with the “Table of contents” label and uses an ordered list. The table of contents markup for the Library setup page looks something like this:
<nav class="toc" aria-labelledby="toc-heading">
<h2 id="toc-heading">Table of contents</h2>
<ol>
<li>
<a href="#cleaning-the-content-folder">“Cleaning” the content folder</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#the-setup-command">The setup command</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#the-config-file">The config file</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#including-a-logo">Including a logo</a>
</li>
</ol>
</nav>
Tables of contents are a neat way to break down the content of the page and give users a navigable overview. However, they may not be to your taste. Never fear, you can turn tables of contents off by adding toc = false
to the TOML metadata for your pattern:
+++
title = "My page with a few headings"
toc = false
+++
Including images
From time to time, you’ll be wanting to include images illustrating the documented pattern in hand. Images live in the static folder, which is a sibling of the /content
folder you’ll be mostly working in.
- content
- static
- images
- logo.png
- menu-button.gif
- images
The path to the /images
folder should begin with a forward slash, so include that when referencing images in your markdown.
![Global Megacorp Ltd](/images/logo.png)
Figures
Sometimes you will want to include a caption with your illustration. This is what the <figure>
and <figcaption>
elements are for. However, Infusion doesn’t ask you to code all that manually. A special shortcode is provided, which takes a caption
parameter. Note that the image markdown is provided between the opening and closing shortcode tags, and that you can use markdown syntax in the caption
value.
{{% figure caption="A design system that uses a bad code example as a **single source of truth** only serves to proliferate bad code." %}}
![Diagram of a design pattern represented by a turd emoji begetting three bad implementations](/images/bad_design_system.png)
{{% /figure %}}
This will output the following. Note the automatically incremented Figure number.
The generated markup includes special provisions for assistive technology support:
<figure role="group" aria-describedby="caption-5fbafefe946c724e7a5d3d2d447a8684">
<p><img src="http://localhost:1313/images/bad_design_system.png" alt="Diagram of a design pattern represented by a turd emoji begetting three bad implementations"></p>
<figcaption id="caption-5fbafefe946c724e7a5d3d2d447a8684">
A design system that uses a bad code example as a <strong>single source of truth</strong> only serves to proliferate bad code.
</figcaption>
</figure>
Including videos
Infusion has a lot of its own shortcodes, but you can still use Hugo’s built in shortcodes. These include a simple shortcode for including YouTube videos in your content. The shortcode takes just one parameter — the video’s id
.
{{<youtube w7Ft2ymGmfc>}}
Code blocks
Markdown already supports code samples both inline (using single backticks like `some code here`) and in blocks. Infusion will syntax highlight HTML, CSS, and JavaScript if you provide the correct language in the formulation of the block.
So, this…
```html
<button aria-pressed="false">toggle me</button>
```
… will result in this:
<button aria-pressed="false">toggle me</button>
Note that the syntax highlighting uses a greyscale theme. Infusion is careful not to use color as part of its own design, because these colors may clash with those of the design being illustrated and discussed.
Line-numbered code blocks
In addition to the basic markdown support, Infusion provides a mechanism to display code blocks with line numbers. This is via the codeBlock
shortcode. Here is the code for a block of JavaScript with line numbers:
{{<codeBlock lang="js" numbered="true">}}
var toggle = demo.querySelector('[aria-pressed]');
toggle.addEventListener('click', (e) => {
let pressed = e.target.getAttribute('aria-pressed') === 'true';
e.target.setAttribute('aria-pressed', !pressed);
});
{{</codeBlock>}}
The output will look like the following. Now you can refer to particular bits of the code by line number, like the arrow function on line 3
.
var toggle = demo.querySelector('[aria-pressed]');
toggle.addEventListener('click', (e) => {
let pressed = e.target.getAttribute('aria-pressed') === 'true';
e.target.setAttribute('aria-pressed', !pressed);
});
Demo embedding
Sometimes just pictures of the pattern you’re documenting aren’t enough. Interactive patterns benefit from live demos, so that readers can test their functionality.
CodePen
Infusion offers a couple of ways to do this. The first is by embedding CodePen demos into the content. The codePen
shortcode takes just one argument: the codePen’s ID
.
{{% codePen VpVNKW %}}
This will embed the identified codePen into the content wherever you placed the shortcode, with the result view showing by default:
jsBin
You can embed JS Bins just like CodePens, supplying a single id
parameter.
{{% jsBin juwowaq %}}
However, you can also have finer control over which panes are displayed. Use two parameters: one for the id
and another, show
, listing the panes you want to include.
{{% jsBin id="juwowaq" show="css,output" %}}
The options for the show
parameter are:
- html
- css
- js
- console
- output
(Note that, under some circumstances, the html
pane is added whether you select it or not.)
Inline demos
Infusion also supports the ability to write inline demos directly in markdown files. See Writing inline demos.
Writing inline demos
There are some issues with , like them not working offline. They also come with CodePen branding, which will clash with the pattern you’re trying to illustrate.
Infusion offers another option: a special demo
shortcode that allows you to write HTML, CSS, and JavaScript directly into the markdown file. The outputted demo is encapsulated using Shadow DOM, so you don’t have to worry about broken styles and global JS.
Here’s the example code for an inline demo of a toggle button:
{{<demo>}}
<button aria-pressed="false">Toggle Me</button>
<style>
button {
background: DarkCyan;
color: white;
border: 0;
font-size: 1.5rem;
padding: 0.5em 1em;
border-right: 5px solid #000;
border-bottom: 5px solid #000;
}
[aria-pressed="true"] {
border: 0;
border-top: 5px solid #000;
border-left: 5px solid #000;
}
</style>
<script>
var toggle = demo.querySelector('[aria-pressed]');
toggle.addEventListener('click', (e) => {
let pressed = e.target.getAttribute('aria-pressed') === 'true';
e.target.setAttribute('aria-pressed', !pressed);
});
</script>
{{</demo>}}
Note the demo.querySelector
on line 21
. Infusion automatically provides demo
, representing the root node of the demo. It’s like the document
keyword but for a demo’s subtree.
Here’s a live demo of… the demo:
Launch in a separate window
The “Launch in separate window” button takes the demo code and pushes it to a new browser window. This serves two purposes:
- It provides a fallback for browsers that do not support Shadow DOM encapsulation (a warning message will replace the inline demo).
- It creates an isolated test case for the demo, allowing you to run browser extensions and bookmarklets on the the demo code and just the demo code.
Captioned demos
It’s possible to give your demo a caption using an accessible <figure>
and <figcaption>
structure. All you need to do is supply a caption
attribute. For example:
{{<demo caption="A basic button element">}}
<!-- demo code here -->
{{</demo>}}
Along with the standard figure
shortcodes (described in Including images), demo figures are numbered automatically according to their order in the page. You can use markdown syntax in the caption text value.
Color palettes
There’s no reason why your Infusion-powered pattern library has to be all about functionality. You can include style guide-like information such as color palettes too. The colors
shortcode makes it easy to exhibit colors and their values together. Just supply a comma-separated list of CSS color values.
{{% colors "#111111, #cccccc, #ffffff" %}}
The result is a one row strip showing each color supplied in order. The colors for Infusion are greyscale:
- #111111
- #CCCCCC
- #FFFFFF
Command line
Your pattern documentation may need to include commands for installing packages or using CLIs. Infusion offers the cmd
shortcode for making code blocks look like terminal commands.
Here’s how you write it:
{{<cmd>}}
npm run start
{{</cmd>}}
And here’s how it looks:
npm run start
File trees
Representing folder/file structures is simple and accessible in Infusion. Which is just as well, because some components may need to conform to a certain folder structure.
The file tree is described using a markdown nested list structure:
{{% fileTree %}}
* Level 1 folder
* Level 2 file
* Level 2 folder
* Level 3 file
* Level 3 folder
* Level 4 file
* Level 3 folder
* Level 4 file
* Level 4 file
* Level 3 file
* Level 2 folder
* Level 3 file
* Level 3 file
* Level 3 file
* Level 2 file
* Level 1 file
{{% /fileTree %}}
This is drawn in the following fashion, but preserves the underlying nested list structure for assistive technologies such as screen readers:
- Level 1 folder
- Level 2 file
- Level 2 folder
- Level 3 file
- Level 3 folder
- Level 4 file
- Level 3 folder
- Level 4 file
- Level 4 file
- Level 3 file
- Level 2 folder
- Level 3 file
- Level 3 file
- Level 3 file
- Level 2 file
- Level 1 file
Tested using...
When you’re an inclusive designer, it’s pertinent to do some testing. Following specs is one thing, but you need to verify that your component works okay for users.
Infusion provided a tested
shortcode that let’s you show which browsers and assistive technologies you’ve tried your design out in. Here’s an example. Note the commas and “+” signs.
{{% tested using="Firefox + JAWS, Chrome, Safari iOS + Voiceover, Edge" %}}
This outputs:
Tested using | Firefox with JAWS | Chrome | Safari iOS with Voiceover | Edge |
---|
The value for the using
attribute follows a specific format: each testing setup is separated by a comma (with a space if you like, but it’s not mandatory). If you want to add an assistive technology (or any other “add on”) this needs to follow a “+”. This additional part can be anything, like “A VR headset I borrowed”, but there are only a few browser terms available. These are case sensitive, so you need to write them as below:
- Firefox
- Chrome
- Safari
- IE
- Edge
- Opera
- Chrome Android
- Firefox Android
- Safari iOS
Obviously, this is not a comprehensive list and more may be added over time. But it covers most of the main browsers for pairing with other software — at least for testing purposes.