README

Render Markdown right in your terminal — headings, colors, lists, code blocks

Chalkmark supports

Chalkmark is a small PHP library that renders a large subset of Markdown to plain-text suitable for CLI output, with optional ANSI colors. It is designed to be lightweight and dependency-free. An example of the terminal output is shown at the end of this README.

Rationale

Embedding Chalkmark into your PHP Docker image turns the container into a self‑documenting, self‑supporting product. Operators can quickly discover how to use the image, read the full README.md directly in the terminal (with clear formatting and optional colors), and run the app without leaving the CLI. This reduces support tickets and misconfigurations, while improving developer experience and adoption.

Chalkmark supports:

Headings # ... ###### (levels 1–6)
Horizontal rules as 40+ underscores on a line
Unordered lists using -, *, or + (with indentation)
Ordered lists like 1. or nested 1) … (with indentation)
Paragraphs with inline formatting:
- code using backticks: `code`
- italic: *text* or _text_
- bold: **text** or __text__
- bold+italic: ***text*** or ___text___
Code blocks fenced by backticks: ```code```
Blockquotes using a pipe-prefix syntax: | quote with nesting like | | nested
Tables using pipe syntax (GitHub-style). Table blocks are normalized: column widths are computed, cells are padded, and alignment markers (:---, :---:, ---:) control left/center/right alignment.

Notes on header background bars (reversed theme):

When using the reversed theme, heading lines (h1–h6) are rendered with a colored background.
The colored background extends to the terminal width when Chalkmark can determine it via the COLUMNS environment variable.
If the terminal width is unknown, Chalkmark pads the colored bar to max(60, visible heading length) characters.
This background fill applies only when the active heading style actually includes a background color and colors are enabled; other themes are unaffected.

Rendered output ends with a trailing newline and ensures there is a blank line at the end.

Requirements

PHP version: PHP 8.2+
Package manager: Composer
Test framework: PHPUnit 11
Autoloading: PSR-4
Demo scripts:
- tests/show-fixture-markdown.php
- tests/show-own-readme.php
- tests/show-themes.php

Installation

This package is a Composer library. From a project that uses Composer, you can install it with:

composer require tetrode/chalkmark

Usage

Minimal example rendering a file and printing to STDOUT:

<?php
use Chalkmark\Chalkmark;

require __DIR__.'/../vendor/autoload.php';

$renderer = new Chalkmark();
$renderer->displayFile(__DIR__ . '/README.md', STDOUT);

Customizing colors or disabling them:

<?php

use Chalkmark\Chalkmark;

$colors = [
    'h1' => "\033[1;34m",     // bright blue bold
    'bullet' => "\033[36m",   // cyan for list bullets
    'code_inline' => "\033[33m", // yellow for inline code
    // set any color key to '' (empty) to remove coloring for that element
];

$renderer = new Chalkmark($enableColors = true, 'default', $colors);

// Disable all colors (useful for logs or tests):
$rendererNoColor = new Chalkmark(false);

Theming

Chalkmark supports themes. A theme is a simple associative array mapping style keys to ANSI escape sequences. The default theme mirrors the legacy built-in colors.

Built-in themes:
- default — classic Chalkmark palette
- monochrome — disables all colors
- reversed — headers with bright white on colored backgrounds (full‑width bars)
- banner — strong background bars for headers (like reversed, different aesthetic)
- nord — cool, subdued blues/cyans; calm aesthetic
- dracula — vibrant magenta/green/yellow with cyan accents; strong contrast
- gruvbox-dark — warm earthy yellow/orange/aqua tones; developer friendly
- solarized-dark — classic blue/cyan/green/yellow; balanced contrast (16‑color)
- pastel-light — soft rose/peach/mint/sky tones for light terminals
Select a theme via the second constructor argument:

use Chalkmark\Chalkmark;

// Use the built-in monochrome theme but keep colors enabled (no ANSI will be emitted):
$renderer = new Chalkmark(true, 'monochrome');

// Use default theme but override some keys:
$overrides = [
    'h1' => "\033[1;34m",     // bright blue bold
    'bullet' => "\033[36m",   // cyan
];
$renderer = new Chalkmark(true, 'default', $overrides);

// Use reversed theme: like default but headers (h1..h6) use bright white (no bold)
// on colored backgrounds (red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan).
// The background bar will expand to the terminal width (from $COLUMNS),
// or to max(60, header length) if the terminal width is unknown.
$renderer = new Chalkmark(true, 'reversed');

Theme Gallery (quick preview):

<?php
use Chalkmark\Chalkmark;
use Chalkmark\Theme\ThemeRegistry;

require __DIR__.'/vendor/autoload.php';

$sample = <<<MD
# Heading 1

## Heading 2

### Heading 3

Paragraph with *italic*, **bold**, and `inline code`.

- Bullet one
- Bullet two
MD;

foreach (ThemeRegistry::listBuiltins() as $name) {
    echo "\n==== Theme: {$name} ====\n";
    $renderer = new Chalkmark(true, $name);
    echo $renderer->renderString($sample);
}

Notes on 256‑color usage:

Some themes (e.g., nord, dracula, gruvbox-dark, pastel-light) use 256‑color SGR codes (38;5;NN). Most modern terminals support these; if your terminal does not, switch to default, monochrome, or solarized-dark for maximum portability.

You can also provide your own theme:

use Chalkmark\Theme\ThemeRegistry;

ThemeRegistry::register('mytheme', [
    'h1' => "\033[1;35m",
    'text' => "\033[0m",
    // ... other keys
]);

$renderer = new Chalkmark(true, 'mytheme');

Load from a PHP file that returns an array:

// mytheme.php
return [
    'h1' => "\033[1;35m",
    'text' => "\033[0m",
];

// usage
$renderer = new Chalkmark(true, __DIR__.'/mytheme.php');

Override precedence: built-in theme < registered/file theme < per-run $colors overrides. Setting an override value to '', false, or null disables that style.

Command-line demo

This repository includes a tiny demo script you can run locally after installing dependencies:

composer install
php tests/show-markdown.php
php tests/show-themes.php
php tests/show-own-readme.php

Table example

Input:

| Left aligned | Centered | Right aligned |
|:-------------|:--------:|--------------:|
| Apple        | Red      |           10 |
| Banana       | Yellow   |            2 |
| Cherry       | Dark Red |            6 |

Output (no colors):

| Left aligned | Centered | Right aligned |
| ------------ | -------- | ------------- |
| Apple        |   Red    |            10 |
| Banana       |  Yellow  |             2 |
| Cherry       | Dark Red |             6 |

Running tests

PHPUnit is configured as a dev dependency. After composer install you can run:

./vendor/bin/phpunit

Tests include both behavior assertions and a demonstration that writes rendered output to the CLI.

Versioning

v1.0.3

Remove deprecated test script for PHP containers, update README structure, add example script and README for demo usage.
Add new built-in themes: nord, dracula, gruvbox-dark, solarized-dark, pastel-light, and banner with corresponding tests and README updates
Add theming support with built-in themes, overrides, and tests Added Table tests

v1.0.1

First public release

License

Chalkmark is made available under the MIT License (MIT). Please see License File for more information.

tetrode / chalkmark

Maintainers

Details