PlayForge Lotus Docs

A documentation plugin for WordPress that ports the layout and styling of the Lotus Docs Hugo theme into a fully native WordPress experience.

It adds a hierarchical Docs post type with folders and documents, a collapsible sidebar tree, a table of contents, Markdown authoring (with front-end syntax highlighting), client-side instant search, and bulk import from .md files / .zip archives. The active WordPress theme's own header and footer are used — no separate theme is required.

Features

• Hierarchical Docs — custom post type pfld_doc with nested folders and documents.
• Sidebar tree — collapsible navigation reflecting the folder/document hierarchy, with expand/collapse state.
• Table of Contents — auto-generated from document headings, with scroll-spy active highlighting.
• Markdown — write docs in Markdown using the bundled Parsedown / ParsedownExtra.
• Syntax highlighting — Prism.js with a large set of language components, plus a copy button on code blocks.
• Client-side search — instant search across all docs without a backend request.
• Bulk import — import one or more Markdown files, or a .zip archive, preserving folder structure.
• Settings screen — customize labels, sidebar behaviour, TOC, search, and code-highlighting options.
• Zero-lock-in — docs are standard WordPress posts; deactivating the plugin does not delete your content (use Delete Plugin to remove data).
• Uses your theme — renders inside the active theme's header.php / footer.php, so it matches the rest of your site.

Requirements

• WordPress 6.0 or higher
• PHP 7.4 or higher
• A modern browser (for admin and front-end interactivity)

Installation

From a release ZIP (recommended)

1. Download the latest playforge-lotusdocs.zip from the Releases page.
2. In WordPress, go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin.
3. Choose the ZIP file and click Install Now.
4. Click Activate Plugin.
5. A new Docs menu appears in the admin sidebar.

Manual (FTP / SSH)

1. Upload the playforge-lotusdocs folder to wp-content/plugins/.
2. Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress.

Getting Started

1. Open Docs → Add New and create a top-level document, or use Docs → Add Folder to organize sections.
2. Use the Document Attributes meta box to set the parent, order, and whether the item acts as a folder.
3. Write in Markdown in the editor (the plugin renders Markdown on the front end; the block editor remains available for hybrid content).
4. Visit /docs/ to see the documentation archive, or open any document to see the sidebar, TOC, and content.
5. Go to Docs → Settings to customize labels, sidebar, TOC, search, and code-highlighting theme.

Importing Markdown

1. Go to Docs → Import.
2. Upload one or more .md files, or a .zip containing a folder structure.
3. The importer maps each Markdown file to a pfld_doc post and recreates the directory hierarchy as nested documents/folders.

Building the stylesheets (optional)

The compiled CSS files under assets/css/ are committed, so most users never need to build. If you want to modify the SCSS sources:

cd build
npm install
npm run build

The SCSS sources (including the vendored Bootstrap partials used by the original Lotus Docs theme) live in build/scss/, and the build script is build/build.mjs.

Repository structure

playforge-lotusdocs/
├── playforge-lotusdocs.php       # Main plugin bootstrap
├── uninstall.php                 # Cleanup on plugin deletion
├── .distignore                   # Files excluded from distribution archives
├── includes/                     # PHP classes (post type, render, search, import, etc.)
├── templates/                    # Front-end templates (archive, single, parts)
├── assets/
│   ├── css/                      # Compiled stylesheets (committed)
│   ├── js/                       # Front-end JS + Prism language components
│   └── fonts/                    # Self-hosted icon font
├── vendor/
│   └── parsedown/                # Parsedown + ParsedownExtra (vendored)
├── build/                        # SCSS sources and build tooling (excluded from dist)
└── hugo/                         # Upstream Lotus Docs Hugo theme for reference (excluded from dist)

Distribution archive

The .distignore file (used by wp dist-archive) excludes build/ and hugo/ from the installable ZIP, because neither is needed at runtime:

• build/ contains SCSS sources, node_modules, and the build script. The compiled CSS is already in assets/css/.
• hugo/ contains the upstream Lotus Docs Hugo theme, kept in the repository so the port can be audited against its source, but not required to run the plugin.

Credits

• Ported to WordPress by Chris.
• Layout and styling based on the Lotus Docs Hugo theme by Colin Wilson (MIT).
• Markdown parsing by Parsedown and ParsedownExtra.
• Syntax highlighting by Prism.js.

License

GPL-2.0-or-later. See LICENSE.