Made with CheapIndex - A script for landing page, wiki, readme

Looking for a fast, plug&play, one-page script for a wiki, landing page or README?

CheapIndex offers

PHP-based: works with older versions
Create and update content effortlessly: one single markdown file
Drag and drop setup: No installation
Zero dependencies: no Composer, no libraries or frameworks required
Responsive design: built with PicoCSS for a sleek, modern look on any device
Lightweight and easy to deploy: open source

Just do

Download → https://anyplanet.org/cheapindex/latest.zip
Unzip and edit → configure settings in index.php and write content in index.md
Drop files → place both files in your target directory

Settings "all what you need"

The most common settings and the style file are located in the CheapIndex Basic version’s index.php as PHP variables. Of course, you can edit the entire file freely. It’s a script and open source.

Set basics

Set the basic page information in the meta fields. These variables are also used to partly configure your social media visibility including Open Graph tags. The default template features 'Made with CheapIndex' branding.

$set_title = 'Made with CheapIndex - A script for landing page, wiki, readme';
$set_description = 'Grab it now and get to work';
$site_author = 'CheapIndex';
$site_name = 'CheapIndex';
$set_keywords = 'CheapIndex, markdown to HTML, landing page, static site, wiki, parser';
$site_language = 'en';
$favicon_url = 'https://anyplanet.org/cheapindex/assets/favicon.ico';

Developer profile

If you have a GitHub account, its data can be fetched and the page header can be used as a profile card.

$show_profile_header = true;
$github_username = 'CaseyCommit';
$set_realname = 'Casey Commit';

Set page typography and background color

You can use most of the fonts offered by GDPR friendly Bunny Fonts. Set your font by assigning its name (Ubuntu, Lato, Inter) to the $set_font variable. 'sans-serif' will be used by default. The page background color is changed using HTML color code.

$set_font = 'Lato';
$set_backgroundcolor = '#e6f2ff';

Set time format and default timezone

The page footer shows the timestamp of when the content (index.md) was last updated. With these settings, you can override the Unix timestamp and set a custom timezone. For more information php.net/date

$dateFormat = 'd M Y H:i';
date_default_timezone_set('Europe/Helsinki');

Customize footer

By default, the footer is a sticky footer, defined within the CSS settings. You can configure the footer data by assigning values to variables or by commenting out specific lines. These variables allow you to modify the information shown in the footer

$print_timezone_footer = 'EEST, UTC+3';
$print_contact_footer = 'Your Info';

Social media sharing

Configure a stylish social media preview image. Use the Facebook Sharing Debugger to verify your results.

$set_social_media_preview = 'https://anyplanet.org/cheapindex/assets/Made-with-CheapIndex-social-media-preview.png';

Forms and iframe

Embed external content effortlessly with the <iframe> tag. For the best form experience, simply copy and paste a form embed code from Google Sheets or Tally.so. We recommend Tally because their free tier offers exceptional styling and customization.

<iframe src="https://tally.so/embed/FORM_ID" width="100%" height="500" frameborder="0"></iframe>

When writing a Markdown document, always wrap HTML tags like <iframe> in backticks (`) to display them as text. Otherwise, Markdown will execute the code and embed the element directly into your page.

Coder's delight. Code snippets you actually need

You can enable line numbers for code blocks by setting true/false

$enable_line_numbers = true;

Use [NOTE] and [WARN] tags to easily create modern info boxes. You can tweak the colors and the default template follows Material Design guidelines.

$color_note_bg = '#e3f2fd'; // Blue 50
$color_warn_bg = '#fffde7'; // Yellow 50

File permissions

Finally, check that the permissions are correct

# Set permissions
chmod 644 index.php

# Set owner (replace 'youruser' with your username)
chown youruser:www-data index.md

# Give owner and group write permission
chmod 664 index.md

The current state and the future is bright

CheapIndex is a fast, write-drop-go tool for wikis, landing pages, READMEs, and portofolios. One file, no builds, no dependencies. Platform-independent, works on Linux, Windows, macOS or any system with PHP support. Just write your page with Markdown syntax and drop it into the folder.

The parser is inspired by Markdown and CommonMark but doesn't strictly follow their grammar - it works through regex-based replacement instead. It supports a practical subset of features and includes custom extensions like [NOTE] and [WARN]. Please note that full compatibility with CommonMark or GitHub Flavored Markdown is not guaranteed.

Already today, you can use CheapIndex as a publishing tool that works seamlessly with manually exported .md files from Dropbox and Notion. This enables collaboration and teamwork within those platforms.

Open source and shared under the permissive MIT license. Stay tuned for more exciting features and enhancements in upcoming versions...

Get in touch

We value your privacy. Information submitted through this form is processed by Tally.so on our behalf. We only use the data to respond to your inquiries. For more details, see Tally’s GDPR compliance.

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