# Getting Started

Getting started with Retype is super quick and you can be up and running within seconds. Check out the Quick Start for the condensed process, or continue here with the full details and expanded steps.

Retype is installed using either npm, yarn, or the dotnet CLI.

You only need one of those three as a prerequisite, although all three could be installed on your computer too. It's up to you. 🙌

It takes just a few seconds to install Retype using any of the following commands. Choose a command for a Package Manager you have installed on your computer.

npm install --global retypeapp
retype watch

yarn global add retypeapp
retype watch

dotnet tool install --global retypeapp
retype watch

The next step is to create a retype.json configuration file for you project. The retype.json file isn't actually required, but you will want to make customizations to your project and this is how those instructions are passed to Retype.

You can manually create a retype.json file, or you can have Retype stub out a basic file with a few initial values by running the command retype init.

From your command line, navigate to any folder location where you have one or more Markdown .md files, such as the root of a GitHub project, then run the following command:

retype init

Calling the retype init command will create a simple retype.json file with the following default values:

{
  "input": ".",
  "output": "./retype",

  "identity": 
  {
    "title": "Project Name",
    "label": "Docs"
  },

  "links": [
    {
      "text": "Getting Started",
      "link": "https://retype.com/getting_started/"
    }
  ],

  "nav": [
    {
      "path": "/",
      "icon": "home"
    }
  ],

  "footer": {
    "copyright": "© Copyright {{ year }}. All rights reserved."
  }
}

All the configs are optional, but the above demonstrates a few of the options you will typically want to start with. See the Project Configuration docs for a full list of all options.

To change the title of the project, revise the identity.title config. For instance, let's change to "Company X":

{
  "identity": 
  {
    "title": "Company X",
  }
}

To generate your new website, run the command retype build.

retype build

Within just a few seconds, Retype will create a new website and save to the output location as defined in the retype.json. By default, the output location is a new folder named retype. You can rename to whatever you like, or adjust the path to generate the output to any other location, such as another sub-folder.

If the .md documentation files for your project were located not in the root (.) but in a docs subfolder AND you wanted to have Retype send the output to a website folder, you would use the following config:

{
  "input": "docs",
  "output": "website",
}

Let's say you wanted the your new Retype website to run from within a docs folder which was then also inside of a root website folder, then you would configure:

{
  "input": "docs",
  "output": "website/docs"
}

If you are hosting your website using GitHub Pages, you should output to the docs folder. You could then move your .md files into a different subfolder and configure as follows:

{
  "input": "src",
  "output": "docs"
}

The input and output configs provide an unlimited flexibility to instruct Retype on where to get your project .md files and where to output the generated website.

To view the new Retype generated website, just run the command retype run.

retype run

That's it! Your new Retype website should be up and running.

The website generated by Retype is a static HTML and JavaScript site. No special server-side hosting, such as PHP or Ruby is required. A Retype generated website can be hosted on any web server, including as a GitHub Pages website.

You can also use any other local web server instead of retype run. Retype only includes a web server out of convenience, not requirement. Any web server will do. A couple other simple options could be live-server or static-server.

Done with Retype? It's okay, we understand. 😢

Uninstalling Retype is just as simple as installing. Use the same Package Manager to uninstall as you did to install. For instance, if you used npm to install Retype, run the npm uninstall command to remove.

# npm
npm uninstall --global retypeapp

# yarn
yarn global remove retypeapp

# dotnet
dotnet tool uninstall --global retypeapp

Any Retype related files within your project can be deleted, such as the retype.json.