# Creating themes

To generate its HTML output, Pelican uses the Jinja templating engine due to its flexibility and straightforward syntax. If you want to create your own theme, feel free to take inspiration from the “simple” theme.

To generate your site using a theme you have created (or downloaded manually and then modified), you can specify that theme via the `-t` flag:

    pelican content -s pelicanconf.py -t /projects/your-site/themes/your-theme

If you’d rather not specify the theme on every invocation, you can define `THEME` in your settings to point to the location of your preferred 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. The above filesystem layout includes CSS and image folders, but those are just examples. Put what you need here.
- templates contains all the templates that will be used to generate the content. The template files listed above are mandatory; you can add your own templates 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, as long as 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 home page, 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.
drafts | The list of draft articles
tags | A list of (tag, articles) tuples, containing all the tags.
categories | A list of (category, articles) tuples, containing all the categories and corresponding articles (values)
pages | The list of pages
hidden_pages | The list of hidden 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.

### Date Formatting

Pelican formats the date according to your settings and locale (`DATE_FORMATS`/`DEFAULT_DATE_FORMAT`) and provides a `locale_date` attribute. On the other hand, the `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') }}

### index.html

This is the home page or index of your blog, generated at `index.html`.

If pagination is active, subsequent pages will reside in `index{number}.html`.

Variable | Description
--- | ---
articles_paginator | A paginator object for the list of articles
articles_page | The current page of articles
articles_previous_page | The previous page of articles (`None` if page does not exist)
articles_next_page | The next page of articles (`None` if page does not exist)
dates_paginator | A paginator object for the article list, ordered by date, ascending.
dates_page | The current page of articles, ordered by date, ascending.
dates_previous_page | The previous page of articles, ordered by date, ascending (`None` if page does not exist)
dates_next_page | The next page of articles, ordered by date, ascending (`None` if page does not exist)
page_name | ‘index’ – useful for pagination links

### author.html

This template will be processed for each of the existing authors, with output generated according to the `AUTHOR_SAVE_AS` setting (Default: `author/{author_name}.html`). If pagination is active, subsequent pages will by default reside at `author/{author_name}{number}.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
articles_previous_page | The previous page of articles (`None` if page does not exist)
articles_next_page | The next page of articles (`None` if page does not exist)
dates_paginator | A paginator object for the article list, ordered by date, ascending.
dates_page | The current page of articles, ordered by date, ascending.
dates_previous_page | The previous page of articles, ordered by date, ascending (`None` if page does not exist)
dates_next_page | The next page of articles, ordered by date, ascending (`None` if page does not exist)
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 according to the `CATEGORY_SAVE_AS` setting (Default: `category/{category_name}.html`). If pagination is active, subsequent pages will by default reside at `category/{category_name}{number}.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
articles_previous_page | The previous page of articles (`None` if page does not exist)
articles_next_page | The next page of articles (`None` if page does not exist)
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
dates_previous_page | The previous page of articles, ordered by date, ascending (`None` if page does not exist)
dates_next_page | The next page of articles, ordered by date, ascending (`None` if page does not exist)
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 output generated according to the `ARTICLE_SAVE_AS` setting (Default: `{article_name}.html`). The following variables are available when rendering.

Variable | Description
--- | ---
article | The article object to be displayed
category | The name of the category for the current article

Any metadata that you put in the header of the article source file will be available as fields on the `article` object. The field name will be the same as the name of the metadata field, except in all-lowercase characters.

For example, you could add a field called FacebookImage to your article metadata, as shown below:

    Title: I love Python more than music
    Date: 2013-11-06 10:06
    Tags: personal, python
    Category: Tech
    Slug: python-je-l-aime-a-mourir
    Author: Francis Cabrel
    FacebookImage: http://franciscabrel.com/images/pythonlove.png

This new metadata will be made available as article.facebookimage in your article.html template. This would allow you, for example, to specify an image for the Facebook open graph tags that will change for each article:

    <meta property="og:image" content="{{ article.facebookimage }}"/>

### page.html

This template will be processed for each page, with output generated according to the `PAGE_SAVE_AS` setting (Default: `pages/{page_name}.html`). The following variables are available when rendering.

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 output generated according to the `TAG_SAVE_AS` setting (Default: `tag/{tag_name}.html`). If pagination is active, subsequent pages will by default reside at `tag/{tag_name}{number}.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
articles_previous_page | The previous page of articles (`None` if page does not exist)
articles_next_page | The next page of articles (`None` if page does not exist)
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
dates_previous_page | The previous page of articles, ordered by date, ascending (`None` if page does not exist)
dates_next_page | The next page of articles, ordered by date, ascending (`None` if page does not exist)
page_name | TAG_URL where everything after {slug} is removed – useful for pagination links

### period_archives.html

This template will be processed for each year of your posts if a path for `YEAR_ARCHIVE_SAVE_AS` is defined, each month if `MONTH_ARCHIVE_SAVE_AS` is defined, and each day if `DAY_ARCHIVE_SAVE_AS` is defined.

Variable | Description
--- | ---
period | A tuple of the form (year, month, day) that indicates the current time period. year and day are numbers while month is a string. This tuple only contains year if the time period is a given year. It contains both year and month if the time period is over years and months and so on.

You can see an example of how to use period in the “simple” theme period_archives.html template.

## Objects

Detail objects attributes that are available and useful in templates. Not all attributes are listed here, this is a selection of attributes considered useful in a template.

### Article

The string representation of an Article is the source_path attribute.

Attribute | Description
--- | ---
author | The Author of this article.
authors | A list of Authors of this article.
category | The Category of this article.
content | The rendered content of the article.
date | Datetime object representing the article date.
date_format | Either default date format or locale date format.
default_template | Default template name.
in_default_lang | Boolean representing if the article is written in the default language.
lang | Language of the article.
locale_date | Date formatted by the date_format.
metadata | Article header metadata dict.
save_as | Location to save the article page.
slug | Page slug.
source_path | Full system path of the article source file.
status | The article status, can be any of ‘published’ or ‘draft’.
summary | Rendered summary content.
tags | List of Tag objects.
template | Template name to use for rendering.
title | Title of the article.
translations | List of translations Article objects.
url | URL to the article page.

### Author / Category / Tag

The string representation of those objects is the name attribute.

Attribute | Description
--- | ---
name | Name of this object [1].
page_name | Author page name.
save_as | Location to save the author page.
slug | Page slug.
url | URL to the author page.

[1] | for Author object, coming from :authors: or AUTHOR.

### Page

The string representation of a Page is the source_path attribute.

Attribute | Description
--- | ---
author | The Author of this page.
content | The rendered content of the page.
date | Datetime object representing the page date.
date_format | Either default date format or locale date format.
default_template | Default template name.
in_default_lang | Boolean representing if the article is written in the default language.
lang | Language of the article.
locale_date | Date formatted by the date_format.
metadata | Page header metadata dict.
save_as | Location to save the page.
slug | Page slug.
source_path | Full system path of the page source file.
status | The page status, can be any of ‘published’ or ‘draft’.
summary | Rendered summary content.
tags | List of Tag objects.
template | Template name to use for rendering.
title | Title of the page.
translations | List of translations Article objects.
url | URL to the page.

## 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
    AUTHOR_FEED_ATOM
    AUTHOR_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` theme in your own themes by using the `{% extends %}` directive as in the following example:

    {% extends "!simple/index.html" %}   <!-- extends the ``index.html`` template from the ``simple`` theme -->

    {% extends "index.html" %}   <!-- "regular" extending -->

### 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:

    {% extends "!simple/base.html" %}

    {% block head %}
    {{ super() }}
       <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="{{ SITEURL }}/theme/css/style.css" />
    {% 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:

    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 `here`.