path: root/docs/settings.rst

Settings
########

Pelican is configurable thanks to a settings file you can pass to
the command line::

    pelican content -s path/to/your/pelicanconf.py

(If you used the ``pelican-quickstart`` command, your primary settings file will
be named ``pelicanconf.py`` by default.)

.. note::

   When experimenting with different settings (especially the metadata
   ones) caching may interfere and the changes may not be visible. In
   such cases disable caching with ``LOAD_CONTENT_CACHE = False`` or
   use the ``--ignore-cache`` command-line switch.

Settings are configured in the form of a Python module (a file). There is an
`example settings file
<https://github.com/getpelican/pelican/raw/master/samples/pelican.conf.py>`_
available for reference.

All the setting identifiers must be set in all-caps, otherwise they will not be
processed. Setting values that are numbers (5, 20, etc.), booleans (True,
False, None, etc.), dictionaries, or tuples should *not* be enclosed in
quotation marks. All other values (i.e., strings) *must* be enclosed in
quotation marks.

Unless otherwise specified, settings that refer to paths can be either absolute
or relative to the configuration file.

The settings you define in the configuration file will be passed to the
templates, which allows you to use your settings to add site-wide content.

Here is a list of settings for Pelican:


Basic settings
==============

===============================================================================  =====================================================================
Setting name (followed by default value, if any)                                 What does it do?
===============================================================================  =====================================================================
``AUTHOR``                                                                       Default author (put your name)
``DATE_FORMATS = {}``                                                            If you manage multiple languages, you can set the date formatting
                                                                                 here. See the "Date format and locale" section below for details.
``USE_FOLDER_AS_CATEGORY = True``                                                When you don't specify a category in your post metadata, set this
                                                                                 setting to ``True``, and organize your articles in subfolders, the
                                                                                 subfolder will become the category of your post. If set to ``False``,
                                                                                 ``DEFAULT_CATEGORY`` will be used as a fallback.
``DEFAULT_CATEGORY = 'misc'``                                                    The default category to fall back on.
``DEFAULT_DATE_FORMAT = '%a %d %B %Y'``                                          The default date format you want to use.
``DISPLAY_PAGES_ON_MENU = True``                                                 Whether to display pages on the menu of the
                                                                                 template. Templates may or may not honor this
                                                                                 setting.
``DISPLAY_CATEGORIES_ON_MENU = True``                                            Whether to display categories on the menu of the
                                                                                 template. Templates may or not honor this
                                                                                 setting.
``DEFAULT_DATE = None``                                                          The default date you want to use.
                                                                                 If ``fs``, Pelican will use the file system
                                                                                 timestamp information (mtime) if it can't get
                                                                                 date information from the metadata.
                                                                                 If set to a tuple object, the default datetime object will instead
                                                                                 be generated by passing the tuple to the
                                                                                 ``datetime.datetime`` constructor.
``DEFAULT_METADATA = ()``                                                        The default metadata you want to use for all articles
                                                                                 and pages.
``DOCUTILS_SETTINGS = {}``                                                       Extra configuration settings for the docutils publisher
                                                                                 (applicable only to reStructuredText). See `Docutils 
                                                                                 Configuration`_ settings for more details.
                                            
``FILENAME_METADATA =`` ``'(?P<date>\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}).*'``                      The regexp that will be used to extract any metadata
                                                                                 from the filename. All named groups that are matched
                                                                                 will be set in the metadata object.
                                                                                 The default value will only extract the date from
                                                                                 the filename.
                                                                                 For example, if you would like to extract both the
                                                                                 date and the slug, you could set something like:
                                                                                 ``'(?P<date>\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2})_(?P<slug>.*)'``.
                                                                                 See :ref:`path_metadata` and ``SLUGIFY_SOURCE``.
``PATH_METADATA = ''``                                                           Like ``FILENAME_METADATA``, but parsed from a page's
                                                                                 full path relative to the content source directory.
                                                                                 See :ref:`path_metadata`.
``EXTRA_PATH_METADATA = {}``                                                     Extra metadata dictionaries keyed by relative path. Relative paths
                                                                                 require correct OS-specific directory separators (i.e. / in UNIX and
                                                                                 \\ in Windows) unlike some other Pelican file settings.
                                                                                 See :ref:`path_metadata`.
``DELETE_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY = False``                                              Delete the output directory, and **all** of its contents, before
                                                                                 generating new files. This can be useful in preventing older,
                                                                                 unnecessary files from persisting in your output. However, **this is
                                                                                 a destructive setting and should be handled with extreme care.**
``OUTPUT_RETENTION = ()``                                                        A tuple of filenames that should be retained and not deleted from the
                                                                                 output directory. One use case would be the preservation of version
                                                                                 control data. For example: ``(".hg", ".git", ".bzr")``
``JINJA_EXTENSIONS = []``                                                        A list of any Jinja2 extensions you want to use.
``JINJA_FILTERS = {}``                                                           A list of custom Jinja2 filters you want to use.
                                                                                 The dictionary should map the filtername to the filter function.
                                                                                 For example: ``{'urlencode': urlencode_filter}``
                                                                                 See `Jinja custom filters documentation`_.
``LOCALE`` [#]_                                                                  Change the locale. A list of locales can be provided
                                                                                 here or a single string representing one locale.
                                                                                 When providing a list, all the locales will be tried
                                                                                 until one works.
``LOG_FILTER = []``                                                              A list of tuples containing the logging level (up to ``warning``)
                                                                                 and the message to be ignored.
                                                                                 For example: ``[(logging.WARN, 'TAG_SAVE_AS is set to False')]``
``READERS = {}``                                                                 A dictionary of file extensions / Reader classes for Pelican to
                                                                                 process or ignore. For example, to avoid processing .html files,
                                                                                 set: ``READERS = {'html': None}``. To add a custom reader for the
                                                                                 ``foo`` extension, set: ``READERS = {'foo': FooReader}``
``IGNORE_FILES = ['.#*']``                                                       A list of file globbing patterns to match against the
                                                                                 source files to be ignored by the processor. For example,
                                                                                 the default ``['.#*']`` will ignore emacs lock files.
``MD_EXTENSIONS =`` ``['codehilite(css_class=highlight)','extra']``              A list of the extensions that the Markdown processor
                                                                                 will use. Refer to the Python Markdown documentation's
                                                                                 `Extensions section <http://pythonhosted.org/Markdown/extensions/>`_
                                                                                 for a complete list of supported extensions. (Note that
                                                                                 defining this in your settings file will override and
                                                                                 replace the default values. If your goal is to *add*
                                                                                 to the default values for this setting, you'll need to
                                                                                 include them explicitly and enumerate the full list of
                                                                                 desired Markdown extensions.)
``OUTPUT_PATH = 'output/'``                                                      Where to output the generated files.
``PATH``                                                                         Path to content directory to be processed by Pelican. If undefined,
                                                                                 and content path is not specified via an argument to the ``pelican``
                                                                                 command, Pelican will use the current working directory.
``PAGE_PATHS = ['pages']``                                                       A list of directories and files to look at for pages,
                                                                                 relative to ``PATH``.
``PAGE_EXCLUDES = []``                                                           A list of directories to exclude when looking for pages in addition
                                                                                 to ``ARTICLE_PATHS``.
``ARTICLE_PATHS = ['']``                                                         A list of directories and files to look at for articles,
                                                                                 relative to ``PATH``.
``ARTICLE_EXCLUDES = []``                                                        A list of directories to exclude when looking for articles in addition
                                                                                 to ``PAGE_PATHS``.
``OUTPUT_SOURCES = False``                                                       Set to True if you want to copy the articles and pages in their
                                                                                 original format (e.g. Markdown or reStructuredText) to the
                                                                                 specified ``OUTPUT_PATH``.
``OUTPUT_SOURCES_EXTENSION = '.text'``                                           Controls the extension that will be used by the SourcesGenerator.
                                                                                 Defaults to ``.text``. If not a valid string the default value
                                                                                 will be used.
``RELATIVE_URLS = False``                                                        Defines whether Pelican should use document-relative URLs or
                                                                                 not. Only set this to ``True`` when developing/testing and only
                                                                                 if you fully understand the effect it can have on links/feeds.
``PLUGINS = []``                                                                 The list of plugins to load. See :ref:`plugins`.
``PLUGIN_PATHS = []``                                                            A list of directories where to look for plugins. See :ref:`plugins`.
``SITENAME = 'A Pelican Blog'``                                                  Your site name
``SITEURL``                                                                      Base URL of your website. Not defined by default,
                                                                                 so it is best to specify your SITEURL; if you do not, feeds
                                                                                 will not be generated with properly-formed URLs. You should
                                                                                 include ``http://`` and your domain, with no trailing
                                                                                 slash at the end. Example: ``SITEURL = 'http://mydomain.com'``
``TEMPLATE_PAGES = None``                                                        A mapping containing template pages that will be rendered with
                                                                                 the blog entries. See :ref:`template_pages`.
``STATIC_PATHS = ['images']``                                                    A list of directories (relative to ``PATH``) in which to look for
                                                                                 static files. Such files will be copied to the output directory
                                                                                 without modification. Articles, pages, and other content source
                                                                                 files will normally be skipped, so it is safe for a directory to
                                                                                 appear both here and in ``PAGE_PATHS`` or ``ARTICLE_PATHS``.
                                                                                 Pelican's default settings include the "images" directory here.
``STATIC_EXCLUDES = []``                                                         A list of directories to exclude when looking for static files.
``STATIC_EXCLUDE_SOURCES = True``                                                If set to False, content source files will not be skipped when
                                                                                 copying files found in ``STATIC_PATHS``.
``TIMEZONE``                                                                     The timezone used in the date information, to
                                                                                 generate Atom and RSS feeds. See the *Timezone*
                                                                                 section below for more info.
``TYPOGRIFY = False``                                                            If set to True, several typographical improvements will be
                                                                                 incorporated into the generated HTML via the `Typogrify
                                                                                 <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/typogrify>`_ library,
                                                                                 which can be installed via: ``pip install typogrify``
``TYPOGRIFY_IGNORE_TAGS = []``                                                   A list of tags for Typogrify to ignore. By default
                                                                                 Typogrify will ignore ``pre`` and ``code`` tags. This
                                                                                 requires that Typogrify version 2.0.4 or later is installed
``DIRECT_TEMPLATES =`` ``('index', 'categories', 'authors', 'archives')``        List of templates that are used directly to render
                                                                                 content. Typically direct templates are used to generate
                                                                                 index pages for collections of content (e.g., tags and
                                                                                 category index pages). If the tag and category collections
                                                                                 are not needed, set ``DIRECT_TEMPLATES = ('index', 'archives')``
``PAGINATED_DIRECT_TEMPLATES = ('index',)``                                      Provides the direct templates that should be paginated.
``SUMMARY_MAX_LENGTH = 50``                                                      When creating a short summary of an article, this will
                                                                                 be the default length (measured in words) of the text created.
                                                                                 This only applies if your content does not otherwise
                                                                                 specify a summary. Setting to ``None`` will cause the summary
                                                                                 to be a copy of the original content.
``EXTRA_TEMPLATES_PATHS = []``                                                   A list of paths you want Jinja2 to search for templates.
                                                                                 Can be used to separate templates from the theme.
                                                                                 Example: projects, resume, profile ...
                                                                                 These templates need to use ``DIRECT_TEMPLATES`` setting.
``WITH_FUTURE_DATES = True``                                                     If disabled, content with dates in the future will get a default
                                                                                 status of ``draft``. See :ref:`reading_only_modified_content`
                                                                                 for caveats.
``INTRASITE_LINK_REGEX = '[{|](?P<what>.*?)[|}]'``                               Regular expression that is used to parse internal links. Default
                                                                                 syntax when linking to internal files, tags, etc., is to enclose
                                                                                 the identifier, say ``filename``, in ``{}`` or ``||``. Identifier
                                                                                 between ``{`` and ``}`` goes into the ``what`` capturing group.
                                                                                 For details see :ref:`ref-linking-to-internal-content`.
``PYGMENTS_RST_OPTIONS = []``                                                    A list of default Pygments settings for your reStructuredText
                                                                                 code blocks. See :ref:`internal_pygments_options` for a list of
                                                                                 supported options.
``SLUGIFY_SOURCE = 'title'``                                                     Specifies where you want the slug to be automatically generated
                                                                                 from. Can be set to ``title`` to use the 'Title:' metadata tag or
                                                                                 ``basename`` to use the article's file name when creating the slug.
``CACHE_CONTENT = True``                                                         If ``True``, save content in a cache file.
                                                                                 See :ref:`reading_only_modified_content` for details about caching.
``CONTENT_CACHING_LAYER = 'reader'``                                             If set to ``'reader'``, save only the raw content and metadata
                                                                                 returned by readers. If set to ``'generator'``, save processed
                                                                                 content objects.
``CACHE_PATH = 'cache'``                                                         Directory in which to store cache files.
``GZIP_CACHE = True``                                                            If ``True``, use gzip to (de)compress the cache files.
``CHECK_MODIFIED_METHOD = 'mtime'``                                              Controls how files are checked for modifications.
``LOAD_CONTENT_CACHE = True``                                                    If ``True``, load unmodified content from cache.
``AUTORELOAD_IGNORE_CACHE = False``                                              If ``True``, do not load content cache in autoreload mode
                                                                                 when the settings file changes.
``WRITE_SELECTED = []``                                                          If this list is not empty, **only** output files with their paths
                                                                                 in this list are written. Paths should be either absolute or relative
                                                                                 to the current Pelican working directory. For possible use cases see
                                                                                 :ref:`writing_only_selected_content`.
===============================================================================  =====================================================================

.. [#] Default is the system locale.


URL settings
============

The first thing to understand is that there are currently two supported methods
for URL formation: *relative* and *absolute*. Relative URLs are useful
when testing locally, and absolute URLs are reliable and most useful when
publishing. One method of supporting both is to have one Pelican configuration
file for local development and another for publishing. To see an example of this
type of setup, use the ``pelican-quickstart`` script as described in the
:doc:`Installation <install>` section, which will produce two separate
configuration files for local development and publishing, respectively.

You can customize the URLs and locations where files will be saved. The
``*_URL`` and ``*_SAVE_AS`` variables use Python's format strings. These
variables allow you to place your articles in a location such as
``{slug}/index.html`` and link to them as ``{slug}`` for clean URLs (see
example below). These settings give you the flexibility to place your articles
and pages anywhere you want.

.. note::
    If you specify a ``datetime`` directive, it will be substituted using the
    input files' date metadata attribute. If the date is not specified for a
    particular file, Pelican will rely on the file's ``mtime`` timestamp.
    Check the `Python datetime documentation`_ for more information.

.. _Python datetime documentation:
    http://docs.python.org/2/library/datetime.html#strftime-and-strptime-behavior

Also, you can use other file metadata attributes as well:

* slug
* date
* lang
* author
* category

Example usage:

* ``ARTICLE_URL = 'posts/{date:%Y}/{date:%b}/{date:%d}/{slug}/'``
* ``ARTICLE_SAVE_AS = 'posts/{date:%Y}/{date:%b}/{date:%d}/{slug}/index.html'``
* ``PAGE_URL = 'pages/{slug}/'``
* ``PAGE_SAVE_AS = 'pages/{slug}/index.html'``

This would save your articles into something like ``/posts/2011/Aug/07/sample-post/index.html``,
save your pages into ``/pages/about/index.html``, and render them available at
URLs of ``/posts/2011/Aug/07/sample-post/`` and ``/pages/about/``, respectively.

======================================================  ==============================================================
Setting name (followed by default value, if any)        What does it do?
======================================================  ==============================================================
``ARTICLE_URL = '{slug}.html'``                         The URL to refer to an article.
``ARTICLE_SAVE_AS = '{slug}.html'``                     The place where we will save an article.
``ARTICLE_ORDER_BY = 'slug'``                           The metadata attribute used to sort articles. By default,
                                                        the ``articles_page.object_list`` template variable is
                                                        ordered by slug. If you modify this, make sure all
                                                        articles contain the attribute you specify. You can also
                                                        specify a "sorting" function of one argument that is used
                                                        to extract a comparison key from each article. For example,
                                                        sorting by title without using the built-in functionality
                                                        would use the function ``operator.attrgetter('title')``.
``ARTICLE_LANG_URL = '{slug}-{lang}.html'``             The URL to refer to an article which doesn't use the
                                                        default language.
``ARTICLE_LANG_SAVE_AS = '{slug}-{lang}.html'``         The place where we will save an article which
                                                        doesn't use the default language.
``DRAFT_URL = 'drafts/{slug}.html'``                    The URL to refer to an article draft.
``DRAFT_SAVE_AS = 'drafts/{slug}.html'``                The place where we will save an article draft.
``DRAFT_LANG_URL = 'drafts/{slug}-{lang}.html'``        The URL to refer to an article draft which doesn't
                                                        use the default language.
``DRAFT_LANG_SAVE_AS = 'drafts/{slug}-{lang}.html'``    The place where we will save an article draft which
                                                        doesn't use the default language.
``PAGE_URL = 'pages/{slug}.html'``                      The URL we will use to link to a page.
``PAGE_SAVE_AS = 'pages/{slug}.html'``                  The location we will save the page. This value has to be
                                                        the same as PAGE_URL or you need to use a rewrite in
                                                        your server config.

``PAGE_ORDER_BY = 'basename'``                          The metadata attribute used to sort pages. By default
                                                        the ``PAGES`` template variable is ordered by basename
                                                        (i.e., path not included). Note that the option ``'basename'``
                                                        is a special option supported in the source code. If
                                                        you modify this setting, make sure all pages contain
                                                        the attribute you specify. You can also specify a "sorting"
                                                        function of one argument that is used to extract a comparison
                                                        key from each page. For example, the basename function looks
                                                        similar to
                                                        ``lambda x: os.path.basename(getattr(x, 'source_path', ''))``.
``PAGE_LANG_URL = 'pages/{slug}-{lang}.html'``          The URL we will use to link to a page which doesn't
                                                        use the default language.
``PAGE_LANG_SAVE_AS = 'pages/{slug}-{lang}.html'``      The location we will save the page which doesn't
                                                        use the default language.
``CATEGORY_URL = 'category/{slug}.html'``               The URL to use for a category.
``CATEGORY_SAVE_AS = 'category/{slug}.html'``           The location to save a category.
``TAG_URL = 'tag/{slug}.html'``                         The URL to use for a tag.
``TAG_SAVE_AS = 'tag/{slug}.html'``                     The location to save the tag page.
``AUTHOR_URL = 'author/{slug}.html'``                   The URL to use for an author.
``AUTHOR_SAVE_AS = 'author/{slug}.html'``               The location to save an author.
``YEAR_ARCHIVE_SAVE_AS = ''``                           The location to save per-year archives of your posts.
``MONTH_ARCHIVE_SAVE_AS = ''``                          The location to save per-month archives of your posts.
``DAY_ARCHIVE_SAVE_AS = ''``                            The location to save per-day archives of your posts.
``SLUG_SUBSTITUTIONS = ()``                             Substitutions to make prior to stripping out
                                                        non-alphanumerics when generating slugs. Specified
                                                        as a list of 2-tuples of ``(from, to)`` which are
                                                        applied in order.
======================================================  ==============================================================

.. note::

    If you do not want one or more of the default pages to be created (e.g.,
    you are the only author on your site and thus do not need an Authors page),
    set the corresponding ``*_SAVE_AS`` setting to ``''`` to prevent the
    relevant page from being generated.

Pelican can optionally create per-year, per-month, and per-day archives of your
posts. These secondary archives are disabled by default but are automatically
enabled if you supply format strings for their respective ``_SAVE_AS`` settings.
Period archives fit intuitively with the hierarchical model of web URLs and can
make it easier for readers to navigate through the posts you've written over time.

Example usage:

* ``YEAR_ARCHIVE_SAVE_AS = 'posts/{date:%Y}/index.html'``
* ``MONTH_ARCHIVE_SAVE_AS = 'posts/{date:%Y}/{date:%b}/index.html'``

With these settings, Pelican will create an archive of all your posts for the
year at (for instance) ``posts/2011/index.html`` and an archive of all your
posts for the month at ``posts/2011/Aug/index.html``.

.. note::
    Period archives work best when the final path segment is ``index.html``.
    This way a reader can remove a portion of your URL and automatically
    arrive at an appropriate archive of posts, without having to specify
    a page name.

``DIRECT_TEMPLATES``, which are ``('index', 'tags', 'categories', 'archives')``
by default, work a bit differently than noted above. Only the ``_SAVE_AS``
settings are available, but it is available for any direct template.

=============================================  ======================================================
Setting name (followed by default value)       What does it do?
=============================================  ======================================================
``ARCHIVES_SAVE_AS = 'archives.html'``         The location to save the article archives page.
``YEAR_ARCHIVE_SAVE_AS = ''``                  The location to save per-year archives of your posts.
``MONTH_ARCHIVE_SAVE_AS = ''``                 The location to save per-month archives of your posts.
``DAY_ARCHIVE_SAVE_AS = ''``                   The location to save per-day archives of your posts.
``AUTHORS_SAVE_AS = 'authors.html'``           The location to save the author list.
``CATEGORIES_SAVE_AS = 'categories.html'``     The location to save the category list.
``TAGS_SAVE_AS = 'tags.html'``                 The location to save the tag list.
``INDEX_SAVE_AS = 'index.html'``               The location to save the list of all articles.
=============================================  ======================================================

URLs for direct template pages are theme-dependent. Some themes use
corresponding ``*_URL`` setting as string, while others hard-code them:
``'archives.html'``, ``'authors.html'``, ``'categories.html'``, ``'tags.html'``.


Timezone
--------

If no timezone is defined, UTC is assumed. This means that the generated Atom
and RSS feeds will contain incorrect date information if your locale is not UTC.

Pelican issues a warning in case this setting is not defined, as it was not
mandatory in previous versions.

Have a look at `the wikipedia page`_ to get a list of valid timezone values.

.. _the wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones


Date format and locale
----------------------

If no ``DATE_FORMATS`` are set, Pelican will fall back to
``DEFAULT_DATE_FORMAT``. If you need to maintain multiple languages with
different date formats, you can set the ``DATE_FORMATS`` dictionary using the
language name (``lang`` metadata in your post content) as the key. 

In addition to the standard C89 strftime format codes that are listed in
`Python strftime documentation`_, you can use ``-`` character between ``%`` and
the format character to remove any leading zeros. For example, ``%d/%m/%Y`` will
output ``01/01/2014`` whereas ``%-d/%-m/%Y`` will result in ``1/1/2014``.

.. parsed-literal::

    DATE_FORMATS = {
        'en': '%a, %d %b %Y',
        'jp': '%Y-%m-%d(%a)',
    }

You can set locale to further control date format:

.. parsed-literal::

    LOCALE = ('usa', 'jpn',  # On Windows
        'en_US', 'ja_JP'     # On Unix/Linux
        )

Also, it is possible to set different locale settings for each language. If you
put (locale, format) tuples in the dict, this will override the ``LOCALE``
setting above:

.. parsed-literal::
    # On Unix/Linux
    DATE_FORMATS = {
        'en': ('en_US','%a, %d %b %Y'),
        'jp': ('ja_JP','%Y-%m-%d(%a)'),
    }

    # On Windows
    DATE_FORMATS = {
        'en': ('usa','%a, %d %b %Y'),
        'jp': ('jpn','%Y-%m-%d(%a)'),
    }

This is a list of available `locales on Windows`_ . On Unix/Linux, usually you
can get a list of available locales via the ``locale -a`` command; see manpage
`locale(1)`_ for more information.


.. _Python strftime documentation: http://docs.python.org/library/datetime.html#strftime-strptime-behavior

.. _locales on Windows: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cdax410z%28VS.71%29.aspx

.. _locale(1): http://linux.die.net/man/1/locale


.. _template_pages:


Template pages
==============

If you want to generate custom pages besides your blog entries, you can point
any Jinja2 template file with a path pointing to the file and the destination
path for the generated file.

For instance, if you have a blog with three static pages — a list of books,
your resume, and a contact page — you could have::

    TEMPLATE_PAGES = {'src/books.html': 'dest/books.html',
                      'src/resume.html': 'dest/resume.html',
                      'src/contact.html': 'dest/contact.html'}


.. _path_metadata:


Path metadata
=============

Not all metadata needs to be `embedded in source file itself`__.  For
example, blog posts are often named following a ``YYYY-MM-DD-SLUG.rst``
pattern, or nested into ``YYYY/MM/DD-SLUG`` directories.  To extract
metadata from the filename or path, set ``FILENAME_METADATA`` or
``PATH_METADATA`` to regular expressions that use Python's `group name
notation`_ ``(?P<name>…)``.  If you want to attach additional metadata
but don't want to encode it in the path, you can set
``EXTRA_PATH_METADATA``:

.. parsed-literal::

    EXTRA_PATH_METADATA = {
        'relative/path/to/file-1': {
            'key-1a': 'value-1a',
            'key-1b': 'value-1b',
            },
        'relative/path/to/file-2': {
            'key-2': 'value-2',
            },
        }

This can be a convenient way to shift the installed location of a
particular file:

.. parsed-literal::

    # Take advantage of the following defaults
    # STATIC_SAVE_AS = '{path}'
    # STATIC_URL = '{path}'
    STATIC_PATHS = [
        'static/robots.txt',
        ]
    EXTRA_PATH_METADATA = {
        'static/robots.txt': {'path': 'robots.txt'},
        }

__ internal_metadata__
.. _group name notation:
   http://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html#regular-expression-syntax


Feed settings
=============

By default, Pelican uses Atom feeds. However, it is also possible to use RSS
feeds if you prefer.

Pelican generates category feeds as well as feeds for all your articles. It does
not generate feeds for tags by default, but it is possible to do so using
the ``TAG_FEED_ATOM`` and ``TAG_FEED_RSS`` settings:

=================================================   =====================================================
Setting name (followed by default value, if any)    What does it do?
=================================================   =====================================================
``FEED_DOMAIN = None``, i.e. base URL is "/"        The domain prepended to feed URLs. Since feed URLs
                                                    should always be absolute, it is highly recommended
                                                    to define this (e.g., "http://feeds.example.com"). If
                                                    you have already explicitly defined SITEURL (see
                                                    above) and want to use the same domain for your
                                                    feeds, you can just set:  ``FEED_DOMAIN = SITEURL``.
``FEED_ATOM = None``, i.e. no Atom feed             Relative URL to output the Atom feed.
``FEED_RSS = None``, i.e. no RSS                    Relative URL to output the RSS feed.
``FEED_ALL_ATOM = 'feeds/all.atom.xml'``            Relative URL to output the all-posts Atom feed:
                                                    this feed will contain all posts regardless of their
                                                    language.
``FEED_ALL_RSS = None``, i.e. no all-posts RSS      Relative URL to output the all-posts RSS feed:
                                                    this feed will contain all posts regardless of their
                                                    language.
``CATEGORY_FEED_ATOM = 'feeds/%s.atom.xml'`` [2]_   Where to put the category Atom feeds.
``CATEGORY_FEED_RSS = None``, i.e. no RSS           Where to put the category RSS feeds.
``AUTHOR_FEED_ATOM = 'feeds/%s.atom.xml'`` [2]_     Where to put the author Atom feeds.
``AUTHOR_FEED_RSS = 'feeds/%s.rss.xml'`` [2]_       Where to put the author RSS feeds.
``TAG_FEED_ATOM = None``, i.e. no tag feed          Relative URL to output the tag Atom feed. It should
                                                    be defined using a "%s" match in the tag name.
``TAG_FEED_RSS = None``, i.e. no RSS tag feed       Relative URL to output the tag RSS feed
``FEED_MAX_ITEMS``                                  Maximum number of items allowed in a feed. Feed item
                                                    quantity is unrestricted by default.
=================================================   =====================================================

If you don't want to generate some or any of these feeds, set the above variables to ``None``.

.. [2] %s is the name of the category.


FeedBurner
----------

If you want to use FeedBurner for your feed, you will likely need to decide
upon a unique identifier. For example, if your site were called "Thyme" and
hosted on the www.example.com domain, you might use "thymefeeds" as your
unique identifier, which we'll use throughout this section for illustrative
purposes. In your Pelican settings, set the ``FEED_ATOM`` attribute to
``thymefeeds/main.xml`` to create an Atom feed with an original address of
``http://www.example.com/thymefeeds/main.xml``. Set the ``FEED_DOMAIN``
attribute to ``http://feeds.feedburner.com``, or ``http://feeds.example.com`` if
you are using a CNAME on your own domain (i.e., FeedBurner's "MyBrand" feature).

There are two fields to configure in the `FeedBurner
<http://feedburner.google.com>`_ interface: "Original Feed" and "Feed
Address". In this example, the "Original Feed" would be
``http://www.example.com/thymefeeds/main.xml`` and the "Feed Address" suffix
would be ``thymefeeds/main.xml``.


Pagination
==========

The default behaviour of Pelican is to list all the article titles along
with a short description on the index page. While this works well for
small-to-medium sites, sites with a large quantity of articles will probably
benefit from paginating this list.

You can use the following settings to configure the pagination.

================================================    =====================================================
Setting name (followed by default value, if any)    What does it do?
================================================    =====================================================
``DEFAULT_ORPHANS = 0``                             The minimum number of articles allowed on the
                                                    last page. Use this when you don't want the last page
                                                    to only contain a handful of articles.
``DEFAULT_PAGINATION = False``                      The maximum number of articles to include on a
                                                    page, not including orphans. False to disable
                                                    pagination.
``PAGINATION_PATTERNS``                             A set of patterns that are used to determine advanced
                                                    pagination output.
================================================    =====================================================


Using Pagination Patterns
-------------------------

The ``PAGINATION_PATTERNS`` setting can be used to configure where
subsequent pages are created. The setting is a sequence of three
element tuples, where each tuple consists of::

  (minimum page, URL setting, SAVE_AS setting,)

For example, if you wanted the first page to just be ``/``, and the
second (and subsequent) pages to be ``/page/2/``, you would set
``PAGINATION_PATTERNS`` as follows::

  PAGINATION_PATTERNS = (
      (1, '{base_name}/', '{base_name}/index.html'),
      (2, '{base_name}/page/{number}/', '{base_name}/page/{number}/index.html'),
  )

This would cause the first page to be written to
``{base_name}/index.html``, and subsequent ones would be written into
``page/{number}`` directories.


Tag cloud
=========

If you want to generate a tag cloud with all your tags, you can do so using the
following settings.

================================================    =====================================================
Setting name (followed by default value)            What does it do?
================================================    =====================================================
``TAG_CLOUD_STEPS = 4``                             Count of different font sizes in the tag
                                                    cloud.
``TAG_CLOUD_MAX_ITEMS = 100``                       Maximum number of tags in the cloud.
================================================    =====================================================

The default theme does not include a tag cloud, but it is pretty easy to add one::

    <ul class="tagcloud">
        {% for tag in tag_cloud %}
            <li class="tag-{{ tag.1 }}"><a href="{{ SITEURL }}/{{ tag.0.url }}">{{ tag.0 }}</a></li>
        {% endfor %}
    </ul>

You should then also define CSS styles with appropriate classes (tag-1 to tag-N,
where N matches ``TAG_CLOUD_STEPS``), tag-1 being the most frequent, and
define a ``ul.tagcloud`` class with appropriate list-style to create the cloud.
For example::

    ul.tagcloud {
      list-style: none;
        padding: 0;
    }

    ul.tagcloud li {
        display: inline-block;
    }

    li.tag-1 {
        font-size: 150%;
    }

    li.tag-2 {
        font-size: 120%;
    }

    ...


Translations
============

Pelican offers a way to translate articles. See the :doc:`Content <content>` section for
more information.

========================================================    =====================================================
Setting name (followed by default value, if any)            What does it do?
========================================================    =====================================================
``DEFAULT_LANG = 'en'``                                     The default language to use.
``TRANSLATION_FEED_ATOM = 'feeds/all-%s.atom.xml'`` [3]_    Where to put the Atom feed for translations.
``TRANSLATION_FEED_RSS = None``, i.e. no RSS                Where to put the RSS feed for translations.
========================================================    =====================================================

.. [3] %s is the language


Ordering content
================

================================================    =====================================================
Setting name (followed by default value)            What does it do?
================================================    =====================================================
``NEWEST_FIRST_ARCHIVES = True``                    Order archives by newest first by date. (False:
                                                    orders by date with older articles first.)
``REVERSE_CATEGORY_ORDER = False``                  Reverse the category order. (True: lists by reverse
                                                    alphabetical order; default lists alphabetically.)
================================================    =====================================================


Themes
======

Creating Pelican themes is addressed in a dedicated section (see :ref:`theming-pelican`).
However, here are the settings that are related to themes.

================================================    =====================================================
Setting name (followed by default value, if any)    What does it do?
================================================    =====================================================
``THEME``                                           Theme to use to produce the output. Can be a relative
                                                    or absolute path to a theme folder, or the name of a
                                                    default theme or a theme installed via
                                                    ``pelican-themes`` (see below).
``THEME_STATIC_DIR = 'theme'``                      Destination directory in the output path where
                                                    Pelican will place the files collected from
                                                    `THEME_STATIC_PATHS`. Default is `theme`.
``THEME_STATIC_PATHS = ['static']``                 Static theme paths you want to copy. Default
                                                    value is `static`, but if your theme has
                                                    other static paths, you can put them here. If files
                                                    or directories with the same names are included in
                                                    the paths defined in this settings, they will be
                                                    progressively overwritten.
``CSS_FILE = 'main.css'``                           Specify the CSS file you want to load.
``THEMES = ['simple', ['!simple', 'simple']]``      Extra themes that can be inherited from, either
                                                    implicitly (just a path to the theme) or explicitly
                                                    using a prefix marker (tuple of prefix and path to
                                                    theme). They can also inherit from each other,
                                                    but only in the specified order.
                                                    See :ref:`theme_inheritance` for details.
================================================    =====================================================


By default, two themes are available. You can specify them using the ``THEME``
setting or by passing the ``-t`` option to the ``pelican`` command:

* notmyidea
* simple (a synonym for "plain text" :)

There are a number of other themes available at https://github.com/getpelican/pelican-themes.
Pelican comes with :doc:`pelican-themes`, a small script for managing themes.

You can define your own theme, either by starting from scratch or by duplicating
and modifying a pre-existing theme. Here is :doc:`a guide on how to create your theme <themes>`.

Following are example ways to specify your preferred theme::

    # Specify name of a built-in theme
    THEME = "notmyidea"
    # Specify name of a theme installed via the pelican-themes tool
    THEME = "chunk"
    # Specify a customized theme, via path relative to the settings file
    THEME = "themes/mycustomtheme"
    # Specify a customized theme, via absolute path
    THEME = "/home/myuser/projects/mysite/themes/mycustomtheme"

The built-in ``notmyidea`` theme can make good use of the following settings. Feel
free to use them in your themes as well.

=======================   =======================================================
Setting name              What does it do?
=======================   =======================================================
``SITESUBTITLE``          A subtitle to appear in the header.
``DISQUS_SITENAME``       Pelican can handle Disqus comments. Specify the
                          Disqus sitename identifier here.
``GITHUB_URL``            Your GitHub URL (if you have one). It will then
                          use this information to create a GitHub ribbon.
``GOOGLE_ANALYTICS``      Set to 'UA-XXXX-YYYY' to activate Google Analytics.
``GOSQUARED_SITENAME``    Set to 'XXX-YYYYYY-X' to activate GoSquared.
``MENUITEMS``             A list of tuples (Title, URL) for additional menu
                          items to appear at the beginning of the main menu.
``PIWIK_URL``             URL to your Piwik server - without 'http://' at the
                          beginning.
``PIWIK_SSL_URL``         If the SSL-URL differs from the normal Piwik-URL
                          you have to include this setting too. (optional)
``PIWIK_SITE_ID``         ID for the monitored website. You can find the ID
                          in the Piwik admin interface > Settings > Websites.
``LINKS``                 A list of tuples (Title, URL) for links to appear on
                          the header.
``SOCIAL``                A list of tuples (Title, URL) to appear in the
                          "social" section.
``TWITTER_USERNAME``      Allows for adding a button to articles to encourage
                          others to tweet about them. Add your Twitter username
                          if you want this button to appear.
=======================   =======================================================

In addition, you can use the "wide" version of the ``notmyidea`` theme by
adding the following to your configuration::

    CSS_FILE = "wide.css"


Logging
=======

Sometimes, a long list of warnings may appear during site generation. Finding
the **meaningful** error message in the middle of tons of annoying log output
can be quite tricky. In order to filter out redundant log messages, Pelican
comes with the ``LOG_FILTER`` setting.

``LOG_FILTER`` should be a list of tuples ``(level, msg)``, each of them being
composed of the logging level (up to ``warning``) and the message to be ignored.
Simply populate the list with the log messages you want to hide, and they will
be filtered out.

For example: ``[(logging.WARN, 'TAG_SAVE_AS is set to False')]``

.. _reading_only_modified_content:


Reading only modified content
=============================

To speed up the build process, Pelican can optionally read only articles
and pages with modified content.

When Pelican is about to read some content source file:

1. The hash or modification time information for the file from a
   previous build are loaded from a cache file if ``LOAD_CONTENT_CACHE``
   is ``True``. These files are stored in the ``CACHE_PATH``
   directory.  If the file has no record in the cache file, it is read
   as usual.
2. The file is checked according to ``CHECK_MODIFIED_METHOD``:

    - If set to ``'mtime'``, the modification time of the file is
      checked.
    - If set to a name of a function provided by the ``hashlib``
      module, e.g. ``'md5'``, the file hash is checked.
    - If set to anything else or the necessary information about the
      file cannot be found in the cache file, the content is read as
      usual.

3. If the file is considered unchanged, the content data saved in a
   previous build corresponding to the file is loaded from the cache,
   and the file is not read.
4. If the file is considered changed, the file is read and the new
   modification information and the content data are saved to the
   cache if ``CACHE_CONTENT`` is ``True``.

If ``CONTENT_CACHING_LAYER`` is set to ``'reader'`` (the default),
the raw content and metadata returned by a reader are cached. If this
setting is instead set to ``'generator'``, the processed content
object is cached. Caching the processed content object may conflict
with plugins (as some reading related signals may be skipped) and the
``WITH_FUTURE_DATES`` functionality (as the ``draft`` status of the
cached content objects would not change automatically over time).

Checking modification times is faster than comparing file hashes,
but it is not as reliable because ``mtime`` information can be lost,
e.g., when copying content source files using the ``cp`` or ``rsync``
commands without the ``mtime`` preservation mode (which for ``rsync``
can be invoked by passing the ``--archive`` flag).

The cache files are Python pickles, so they may not be readable by
different versions of Python as the pickle format often changes. If
such an error is encountered, the cache files have to be rebuilt by
removing them and re-running Pelican, or by using the Pelican
command-line option ``--ignore-cache``. The cache files also have to
be rebuilt when changing the ``GZIP_CACHE`` setting for cache file
reading to work properly.

The ``--ignore-cache`` command-line option is also useful when the
whole cache needs to be regenerated, such as when making modifications
to the settings file that will affect the cached content, or just for
debugging purposes. When Pelican runs in autoreload mode, modification
of the settings file will make it ignore the cache automatically if
``AUTORELOAD_IGNORE_CACHE`` is ``True``.

Note that even when using cached content, all output is always
written, so the modification times of the generated ``*.html`` files
will always change. Therefore, ``rsync``-based uploading may benefit
from the ``--checksum`` option.

.. _writing_only_selected_content:


Writing only selected content
=============================

When only working on a single article or page, or making tweaks to
your theme, it is often desirable to generate and review your work
as quickly as possible. In such cases, generating and writing the
entire site output is often unnecessary. By specifying only the
desired files as output paths in the ``WRITE_SELECTED`` list,
**only** those files will be written. This list can be also specified
on the command line using the ``--write-selected`` option, which
accepts a comma-separated list of output file paths. By default this
list is empty, so all output is written.


Example settings
================

.. literalinclude:: ../samples/pelican.conf.py
    :language: python


.. _Jinja custom filters documentation: http://jinja.pocoo.org/docs/api/#custom-filters
.. _Docutils Configuration: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/docs/user/config.html