added: README about

diff --git a/README b/README
index 80458c1405e29bcd9242b3cbdab2319e2d145588..515eb5e69692bd13e49d3ad1332f8217513b3078 100644 (file)
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -1,13 +1,45 @@
-metaforge - v0.1.1
+# metaforge - v0.1.1
 
 a pattern driven static site generator for extensible snippet insertion.
 
+### dependencies
+
+- cargo
+- pandoc (reccommended)
+
+### installing:
+
+    $ cd metaforge
+    $ cargo install --path .
+
+
+## about
+
+metaforge is a static site generator that lets you write something once, and re-use it
+across your site. it requires previous knowledge of html, and doesn't come with pre-made
+themes or templates except for a completely bare skeleton directory. it gives you extremely
+fine grained control over the generated html, customizing each pattern to a source file
+with variables and mappable arrays.
+
+metaforge also lets you write metapatterns that contain classes, masking choices to a
+sub-set of patterns, and defining a fallback default pattern. combining this with variables
+and arrays allow you to write completely customized and free form html that remains consistant
+across your entire site, while still getting access to page level tinkering.
+
+substitution and expansion is entirely disconnected from translation, which uses pandoc under the
+hood. this means metaforge can be ran without pandoc, simply parsing and expanding files as needed.
+this can be set on both a site and file level, allowing single files in the site to be simply expanded,
+such as an rss feed. metaforge can also technically translate between any two document formats pandoc supports,
+but nothing other than the default markdown to html gets tested.
+
 the full documentation is available in this repository under the **files/README/source/docs**
 directory. it's currently setup as a working example of a metaforge site, so you can poke around
 and see one way a site can be setup.
 
-building documentation:
+### building documentation
+
     $ cargo test -- --ignored readme
 
 this command can be run as many times as needed to regenerate the documentation, and is
-reccomended after upgrading to a new version to see what's changed.
+reccomended after upgrading to a new version to see what's changed. the generated docs will
+be available in **files/README/build**, and can be looked at in any web browser.