Posted onJan 23, 2023 • Edited onOct 24, 2023 • Originally published atthe-guild.dev

Nextra 2 – Next.js Static Site Generator

#nextra #nextjs #react

This article was published on Tuesday, January 24, 2023 byDimitri POSTOLOV @The Guild Blog

What's Nextra

Nextra – Next.js Static Site Generator framework that works on top of Next.js
and React, uses Tailwind CSS and
other amazing open-source libraries. It lets you create your
powerful markdown content using atheme package.

Currently, Nextra contains two official themes:

nextra-theme-docs theme for documentation
nextra-theme-blog theme for your simple blog

But you can provide your own theme to fully customize to your needs.

What's New

MDX 2 Support

Migration toMDX 2 comes with improved performance, supporting any JSX
runtime and JavaScript expression inside your markdown pages.

```mdx filename="Markdown"
import Hero from '@/components/hero'

Current year - {new Date().getFullYear()}

#### Markdown ImportIn case of reusing some duplicated content you can export and import your markdown files.```mdx filename="task-list.mdx"- [x] Code- [x] Sleep- [ ] Eat

and import in your MDX page:

```mdx filename="page.mdx"
import TaskList from './task-list.mdx'

### Support Next.js 13Nextra 2 comes with support for the latest **Next.js 13** version and also up to Next.js 9!### Images and Links OptimizationStatic images are always optimized with `<NextImage />` component, internal links are replaced with`<NextLink />` component, external links will have `target="_blank"` and `rel="noreferrer"` and willinform screen readers about opening a link in a new tab.`<NextImage />` will prevent to have layout shifts on your page. Instantiate (client-side)navigation would be done with `<NextLink />`.```text filename="Markdown"![Hero](/hero.png)[Learn more](/more)[See examples](https://github.com/shuding/nextra/tree/main/examples)

will be compiled to:

importImagefrom'next/image'importLinkfrom'next/link'importnextraImagefrom'../../public/hero.png'functionMDXContent(){return(<><Imagesrc={nextraImage}alt="Hero"/><Linkhref="/more">Learn more</Link><ahref="https://github.com/shuding/nextra/tree/main/examples"target="_blank"rel="noreferrer">        See examples<spanclassName="sr-only"> (opens in a new tab)</span></a></>)}exportdefaultMDXContent

Extensible with`rehype`/`remark` Plugins

You can extend Nextra with any ofrehype/remark plugins, just pass them to thenextra
function.

```js filename="next.config.js" {7-9}
import nextra from 'nextra'
import remarkMdxDisableExplicitJsx from 'remark-mdx-disable-explicit-jsx'

const withNextra = nextra({
theme: 'nextra-theme-docs',
themeConfig: './theme.config.jsx',
remarkPlugins: [
[remarkMdxDisableExplicitJsx, { whiteList: ['table', 'thead', 'tbody', 'tr', 'th', 'td'] }]
],
rehypePlugins: []
})

export default withNextra()

### Remote MarkdownRendering remote markdown is simple, you will need:1.  Install `next-mdx-remote` and import `MDXRemote` component2.  Compile your markdown raw string using `compileMdx` from `nextra/compile` in `getStaticProps()`3.  Provide your compiled result code to `props.ssg`4.  Get data from SSG with `useSSG` hook from `nextra/ssg`5.  Provide compiled result code for `MDXRemote` via `compiledSource` prop6.  Provide `components` from `useMDXComponents` hook from `nextra/mdx` for `MDXRemote` to prevent    layout shifts```mdx filename="Remote Nextra Readme" showLineNumbers {1,9,12,20,22}import { MDXRemote } from 'next-mdx-remote' {/* 1 */}import { compileMdx } from 'nextra/compile'import { useSSG } from 'nextra/ssg'import { useMDXComponents } from 'nextra/mdx'export const getStaticProps = async () => {  const response = await fetch('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/shuding/nextra/main/README.md')  const markdown = await response.text()  const mdx = await compileMdx(markdown, { defaultShowCopyCode: true }) // 2  return {    props: {      ssg: mdx.result // 3    },    // Revalidate at most once every 1 hour    revalidate: 60 * 60  }}export const NextraReadme = () => {  const compiledSource = useSSG() // 4  const components = useMDXComponents()  return <MDXRemote compiledSource={compiledSource} components={components} /> // 5-6}<NextraReadme />

Click to expand Nextra's readme from GitHub 🚀

Nextra Theme Docs Features

nextra-theme-docs was completely redesigned to be more flexible and configurable for all of your
needs.

Various Customization

Here is an overview of different options for customization elements such as:

Banner
Header (logo / chat icon / project icon)
Footer
<head /> content and Next SEO props
Various search / sidebar / TOC options
Pagination on page
Dark mode
Edit page link
Hue of the primary theme color
404/500 page

They could be configured in yourtheme.config.jsx file.
Read more about all available options.

Builtin Full-Text Search

Full-text search is powered byFlexSearch and Nextra
will index all of your pages at build time ⚡.

New Syntax Highlighting

Prismjs was replaced byShiki and
rehype-pretty-code.

Below is an example of a code block with a filename, line numbers, word highlighting and line
highlighting:

````md filename="Markdown"

jsx filename="My File" showLineNumbers /App/ {2}function App() {  return <div>Hello</div>}

`will be rendered as:```jsx filename="My File" showLineNumbers /App/ {2}function App() {  return <div>Hello</div>}```#### Next SEO BuiltinOut of the box, `nextra-theme-docs` has Next SEO installed. By default, in the front matter you canset `title`, `description`, `canonical` and `openGraph` and they will be passed directly to the`<NextSeo />` component.```md filename="Markdown"---title: "Nextra 2"description: "Nextra – Next.js Static Site Generator"---```will be passed to Next SEO and rendered on the page as:```html<head>  <title>Nextra 2</title>  <meta name="og:title" content="Nextra 2" />  <meta name="description" content="Nextra – Next.js Static Site Generator" />  <meta name="og:description" content="Nextra – Next.js Static Site Generator" /></head>```<Callout>  You can manually pass Next SEO props with `useNextSeoProps` theme option. [Read  more](https://nextra.site/docs/docs-theme/theme-configuration#seo-options) in the docs.</Callout>#### I18n Support`nextra-theme-docs` comes with support i18n in your website.To use it, provide Next.js' `i18n` field with `locales` and `defaultLocale` setup:```js filename="next.config.js"export default withNextra({  i18n: {    locales: ['en-US', 'fr-FR'],    defaultLocale: 'en-US'  }})```Add Nextra's middleware:```js filename="middleware.js"export { locales as middleware } from 'nextra/locales'```Create your `_meta` and page files with locales suffixes:```text├── pages│   ├── _meta.en-US.json│   ├── _meta.fr-FR.json│   ├── index.en-US.mdx│   ├── index.fr-FR.mdx``````mdx filename="index.en-US.mdx"# 🇺🇸 Hello Nextra 2``````mdx filename="index.fr-FR.mdx"# 🇫🇷 Bonjour Nextra 2```[Learn more](https://nextra.site/docs/guide/i18n) on docs.#### LTR/RTL Direction SupportYour website can be fully mirrored with RTL direction. All that you need it provides `dir: 'rtl'` inyour `theme.config.jsx` file.<NextImage src={nextraRtl} className="mt-6 rounded-3xl border border-gray-700" alt="Example of Nextra page with RTL direction" loading="lazy" />#### A11yAccessibility is all, Nextra respects system preferences, animation will be reduced with`reduce-motion` mode, colors will be adjusted in `contrast-more` mode.<NextImage src={nextraContrastMode} className="mt-6 rounded-3xl border border-gray-700" alt="Example of Nextra page with contrast mode enabled" loading="lazy" />## Conclusion[The Guild](/) discovered Nextra 2 from the first betas and actively participated in the developmentand improvement of this library. I (Dimitri) become[an official maintainer](https://nextra.site/about#team) of this library on par with Nextra creatoramazing [Shu Ding](https://github.com/shuding/nextra) from Vercel.In the end, we migrated all our projects' documentation to Nextra, which provides a better setup anddocumentation design than our previous `guild-docs` package. Alongside we added Giscus comments atthe end of each page that synchronizes with GitHub discussions.We receive a bunch of positive feedback and much more contributions and fixing mistakes in our docsfrom our community ❤️.<Callout emoji="🍭">In fact, even this blog uses Nextra 2 and `nextra-theme-docs`. 👀</Callout>