.. _theming-pelican: How to create themes for Pelican ################################ Pelican uses the great `Jinja2 `_ templating engine to generate its HTML output. Jinja2 syntax is really simple. If you want to create your own theme, feel free to take inspiration from the `"simple" theme `_. Structure ========= To make your own theme, you must follow the following structure:: ├── static │   ├── css │   └── images └── templates ├── archives.html // to display archives ├── period_archives.html // to display time-period archives ├── article.html // processed for each article ├── author.html // processed for each author ├── authors.html // must list all the authors ├── categories.html // must list all the categories ├── category.html // processed for each category ├── index.html // the index. List all the articles ├── page.html // processed for each page ├── tag.html // processed for each tag └── tags.html // must list all the tags. Can be a tag cloud. * `static` contains all the static assets, which will be copied to the output `theme` folder. I've put the CSS and image folders here, but they are just examples. Put what you need here. * `templates` contains all the templates that will be used to generate the content. I've just put the mandatory templates here; you can define your own if it helps you keep things organized while creating your theme. Templates and variables ======================= The idea is to use a simple syntax that you can embed into your HTML pages. This document describes which templates should exist in a theme, and which variables will be passed to each template at generation time. All templates will receive the variables defined in your settings file, if they are in all-caps. You can access them directly. Common variables ---------------- All of these settings will be available to all templates. ============= =================================================== Variable Description ============= =================================================== output_file The name of the file currently being generated. For instance, when Pelican is rendering the homepage, output_file will be "index.html". articles The list of articles, ordered descending by date All the elements are `Article` objects, so you can access their attributes (e.g. title, summary, author etc.). Sometimes this is shadowed (for instance in the tags page). You will then find info about it in the `all_articles` variable. dates The same list of articles, but ordered by date, ascending tags A list of (tag, articles) tuples, containing all the tags. categories A list of (category, articles) tuples, containing all the categories. and the list of respective articles (values) pages The list of pages ============= =================================================== Sorting ------- URL wrappers (currently categories, tags, and authors), have comparison methods that allow them to be easily sorted by name:: {% for tag, articles in tags|sort %} If you want to sort based on different criteria, `Jinja's sort command`__ has a number of options. __ http://jinja.pocoo.org/docs/templates/#sort Date Formatting --------------- Pelican formats the date with according to your settings and locale (``DATE_FORMATS``/``DEFAULT_DATE_FORMAT``) and provides a ``locale_date`` attribute. On the other hand, ``date`` attribute will be a `datetime`_ object. If you need custom formatting for a date different than your settings, use the Jinja filter ``strftime`` that comes with Pelican. Usage is same as Python `strftime`_ format, but the filter will do the right thing and format your date according to the locale given in your settings:: {{ article.date|strftime('%d %B %Y') }} .. _datetime: http://docs.python.org/2/library/datetime.html#datetime-objects .. _strftime: http://docs.python.org/2/library/datetime.html#strftime-strptime-behavior index.html ---------- This is the home page of your blog, generated at output/index.html. If pagination is active, subsequent pages will reside in output/index`n`.html. =================== =================================================== Variable Description =================== =================================================== articles_paginator A paginator object for the list of articles articles_page The current page of articles dates_paginator A paginator object for the article list, ordered by date, ascending. dates_page The current page of articles, ordered by date, ascending. page_name 'index' -- useful for pagination links =================== =================================================== author.html ------------- This template will be processed for each of the existing authors, with output generated at output/author/`author_name`.html. If pagination is active, subsequent pages will reside as defined by setting AUTHOR_SAVE_AS (`Default:` output/author/`author_name'n'`.html). =================== =================================================== Variable Description =================== =================================================== author The name of the author being processed articles Articles by this author dates Articles by this author, but ordered by date, ascending articles_paginator A paginator object for the list of articles articles_page The current page of articles dates_paginator A paginator object for the article list, ordered by date, ascending. dates_page The current page of articles, ordered by date, ascending. page_name AUTHOR_URL where everything after `{slug}` is removed -- useful for pagination links =================== =================================================== category.html ------------- This template will be processed for each of the existing categories, with output generated at output/category/`category_name`.html. If pagination is active, subsequent pages will reside as defined by setting CATEGORY_SAVE_AS (`Default:` output/category/`category_name'n'`.html). =================== =================================================== Variable Description =================== =================================================== category The name of the category being processed articles Articles for this category dates Articles for this category, but ordered by date, ascending articles_paginator A paginator object for the list of articles articles_page The current page of articles dates_paginator A paginator object for the list of articles, ordered by date, ascending dates_page The current page of articles, ordered by date, ascending page_name CATEGORY_URL where everything after `{slug}` is removed -- useful for pagination links =================== =================================================== article.html ------------- This template will be processed for each article, with .html files saved as output/`article_name`.html. Here are the specific variables it gets. ============= =================================================== Variable Description ============= =================================================== article The article object to be displayed category The name of the category for the current article ============= =================================================== page.html --------- This template will be processed for each page, with corresponding .html files saved as output/`page_name`.html. ============= =================================================== Variable Description ============= =================================================== page The page object to be displayed. You can access its title, slug, and content. ============= =================================================== tag.html -------- This template will be processed for each tag, with corresponding .html files saved as output/tag/`tag_name`.html. If pagination is active, subsequent pages will reside as defined in setting TAG_SAVE_AS (`Default:` output/tag/`tag_name'n'`.html). =================== =================================================== Variable Description =================== =================================================== tag The name of the tag being processed articles Articles related to this tag dates Articles related to this tag, but ordered by date, ascending articles_paginator A paginator object for the list of articles articles_page The current page of articles dates_paginator A paginator object for the list of articles, ordered by date, ascending dates_page The current page of articles, ordered by date, ascending page_name TAG_URL where everything after `{slug}` is removed -- useful for pagination links =================== =================================================== Feeds ===== The feed variables changed in 3.0. Each variable now explicitly lists ATOM or RSS in the name. ATOM is still the default. Old themes will need to be updated. Here is a complete list of the feed variables:: FEED_ATOM FEED_RSS FEED_ALL_ATOM FEED_ALL_RSS CATEGORY_FEED_ATOM CATEGORY_FEED_RSS TAG_FEED_ATOM TAG_FEED_RSS TRANSLATION_FEED_ATOM TRANSLATION_FEED_RSS Inheritance =========== Since version 3.0, Pelican supports inheritance from the ``simple`` theme, so you can re-use the ``simple`` theme templates in your own themes. If one of the mandatory files in the ``templates/`` directory of your theme is missing, it will be replaced by the matching template from the ``simple`` theme. So if the HTML structure of a template in the ``simple`` theme is right for you, you don't have to write a new template from scratch. You can also extend templates from the ``simple`` themes in your own themes by using the ``{% extends %}`` directive as in the following example: .. code-block:: html+jinja {% extends "!simple/index.html" %} {% extends "index.html" %} Example ------- With this system, it is possible to create a theme with just two files. base.html """"""""" The first file is the ``templates/base.html`` template: .. code-block:: html+jinja {% extends "!simple/base.html" %} {% block head %} {{ super() }} {% endblock %} 1. On the first line, we extend the ``base.html`` template from the ``simple`` theme, so we don't have to rewrite the entire file. 2. On the third line, we open the ``head`` block which has already been defined in the ``simple`` theme. 3. On the fourth line, the function ``super()`` keeps the content previously inserted in the ``head`` block. 4. On the fifth line, we append a stylesheet to the page. 5. On the last line, we close the ``head`` block. This file will be extended by all the other templates, so the stylesheet will be linked from all pages. style.css """"""""" The second file is the ``static/css/style.css`` CSS stylesheet: .. code-block:: css body { font-family : monospace ; font-size : 100% ; background-color : white ; color : #111 ; width : 80% ; min-width : 400px ; min-height : 200px ; padding : 1em ; margin : 5% 10% ; border : thin solid gray ; border-radius : 5px ; display : block ; } a:link { color : blue ; text-decoration : none ; } a:hover { color : blue ; text-decoration : underline ; } a:visited { color : blue ; } h1 a { color : inherit !important } h2 a { color : inherit !important } h3 a { color : inherit !important } h4 a { color : inherit !important } h5 a { color : inherit !important } h6 a { color : inherit !important } pre { margin : 2em 1em 2em 4em ; } #menu li { display : inline ; } #post-list { margin-bottom : 1em ; margin-top : 1em ; } Download """""""" You can download this example theme :download:`here <_static/theme-basic.zip>`.