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Install Zensical Studio

Install Zensical Studio in Visual Studio Code and use the editor you already know for writing, validating, and navigating your documentation. We'll add support for other editors in the near future.

Install the extension

Open the Extensions viewOpen the Extensions viewOpen ExtensionsOpen the Plugins settingsCtrl+Shift+XmacOSCmd+Shift+XWindowsCtrl+Shift+XLinuxCtrl+Shift+X, search for Zensical Studio, and click Install.

Zensical Studio in the Extensions view

You can also install from the command line:

code --install-extension zensical.zensical-studio

To activate Python Markdown support, create .vscode/settings.json in your documentation project and add the following:

{
  "files.associations": {
    "*.md": "python-markdown"
  }
}

Open the Extensions viewOpen the Extensions viewOpen ExtensionsOpen the Plugins settingsCtrl+Shift+XmacOSCmd+Shift+XWindowsCtrl+Shift+XLinuxCtrl+Shift+X, search for Zensical Studio, and click Install.

Cursor maintains its own extension registry. If Zensical Studio does not appear in search results, check that the Extensions view is showing all available sources.

Open Zed → Extensions from the application menu, or run zed: extensions from the command palette Ctrl+Shift+PmacOSCmd+Shift+PWindowsCtrl+Shift+PLinuxCtrl+Shift+P. Search for Zensical Studio and click Install.

Zed extensions are installed globally and activate automatically for any project that contains a supported Zensical configuration.

That's all. Zensical Studio will now automatically detect and validate Python Markdown files in your project, and check for broken links, headings, and references.

What gets installed

The editor extension connects Visual Studio CodeCursorZedJetBrains IDEs to the Zensical Studio server that does most of the work and that is independent of the editor being used. It reads the project configuration and builds a workspace model of pages, headings, links, assets, glossary terms, and Markdown extensions. Based on the model of your project, it then provides Markdown syntax highlighting, formatting, diagnostics, completions, and code actions.

Instead of working with separate extensions that may or may now work well together, you get consistent feedback and authoring support.

Confirm it is active

After opening a Zensical project, then check that:

  • On opening a Markdown file, the Python Markdown language is active.
    You can see what language is active in the status bar in the bottom right of your screen. If you do not see a status bar, you can turn it on in View → Appearance → Status Bar.
  • Markdown files show project-aware highlighting and diagnostics.