Installing Pelican
******************

Pelican currently runs best on 3.6+; earlier versions of Python are
not supported.

You can install Pelican via several different methods. The simplest is
via Pip:

   python -m pip install pelican

Or, if you plan on using Markdown:

   python -m pip install "pelican[markdown]"

(Keep in mind that some operating systems will require you to prefix
the above command with "sudo" in order to install Pelican system-
wide.)

While the above is the simplest method, the recommended approach is to
create a virtual environment for Pelican via virtualenv before
installing Pelican. Assuming you have virtualenv installed, you can
then open a new terminal session and create a new virtual environment
for Pelican:

   virtualenv ~/virtualenvs/pelican
   cd ~/virtualenvs/pelican
   source bin/activate

Once the virtual environment has been created and activated, Pelican
can be installed via "python -m pip install pelican" as noted above.
Alternatively, if you have the project source, you can install Pelican
using the distutils method:

   cd path-to-Pelican-source
   python setup.py install

If you have Git installed and prefer to install the latest bleeding-
edge version of Pelican rather than a stable release, use the
following command:

   python -m pip install -e "git+https://github.com/getpelican/pelican.git#egg=pelican"

Once Pelican is installed, you can run "pelican --help" to see basic
usage options. For more detail, refer to the Publish section.


Optional packages
=================

If you plan on using Markdown as a markup format, you can install
Pelican with Markdown support:

   python -m pip install "pelican[markdown]"

Typographical enhancements can be enabled in your settings file, but
first the requisite Typogrify library must be installed:

   python -m pip install typogrify


Dependencies
============

When Pelican is installed, the following dependent Python packages
should be automatically installed without any action on your part:

* feedgenerator, to generate the Atom feeds

* jinja2, for templating support

* pygments, for syntax highlighting

* docutils, for supporting reStructuredText as an input format

* pytz, for timezone definitions

* blinker, an object-to-object and broadcast signaling system

* unidecode, for ASCII transliterations of Unicode text utilities

* MarkupSafe, for a markup-safe string implementation

* python-dateutil, to read the date metadata


Upgrading
=========

If you installed a stable Pelican release via Pip and wish to upgrade
to the latest stable release, you can do so by adding "--upgrade":

   python -m pip install --upgrade pelican

If you installed Pelican via distutils or the bleeding-edge method,
simply perform the same step to install the most recent version.


Kickstart your site
===================

Once Pelican has been installed, you can create a skeleton project via
the "pelican-quickstart" command, which begins by asking some
questions about your site:

   pelican-quickstart

If run inside an activated virtual environment, "pelican-quickstart"
will look for an associated project path inside
"$VIRTUAL_ENV/.project". If that file exists and contains a valid
directory path, the new Pelican project will be saved at that
location. Otherwise, the default is the current working directory. To
set the new project path on initial invocation, use: "pelican-
quickstart --path /your/desired/directory"

Once you finish answering all the questions, your project will consist
of the following hierarchy (except for *pages* — shown in parentheses
below — which you can optionally add yourself if you plan to create
non-chronological content):

   yourproject/
   ├── content
   │   └── (pages)
   ├── output
   ├── tasks.py
   ├── Makefile
   ├── pelicanconf.py       # Main settings file
   └── publishconf.py       # Settings to use when ready to publish

The next step is to begin to adding content to the *content* folder
that has been created for you.
