Creating Static Sites with Pelican at LIPN

Transcript

1. Creating Static Sites with Pelican B Jaime Arias arias@lipn.univ-paris13.fr Laboratoire d’Informatique de Paris Nord (LIPN) April 9, 2026 Jaime Arias Creating Static Sites with Pelican B 1 /27
2. Table of contents 1. Installation 2. Creating a New Project 3. Creating Pages 4. Generating the Site 5. Plugins 6. Themes 7. Publishing the Site Jaime Arias Creating Static Sites with Pelican B 2 /27
3. 1. Installation Jaime Arias Creating Static Sites with Pelican B 3 /27
4. Installation • Language → Python • Some features: ◦ Articles → blog posts ◦ Pages → About, Contact, etc. ◦ Plugins → Disqus, Bibtex, etc. ◦ Theming support → Jinja2 templates ◦ Code syntax highlighting ◦ Integration with external tools → Google, Twitter, etc. Jaime Arias Creating Static Sites with Pelican B 4 /27
5. Installation • Official Website → https://getpelican.com • Git Repository → https://github.com/getpelican/pelican • Documentation → https://docs.getpelican.com Installing Pelican > # Use a virtual environment (Best Practice) > python -m venv pelican > source pelican/bin/activate > > # Pelican with Markdown support > pip install "pelican[markdown]" typogrify > > # Create a requirements.txt file for deployment > pip freeze > requirements.txt Jaime Arias Creating Static Sites with Pelican B 5 /27
6. 2. Creating a New Project Jaime Arias Creating Static Sites with Pelican B 6 /27
7. Creating a New Project Quickstart Wizard > mkdir mysite && cd mysite > pelican-quickstart • Follow the prompts to set up your site configuration ◦ For the question Do you want to specify a URL prefix? use: https://sites.lipn.univ-paris13.fr/<group>/<project> • This creates a basic directory structure and a sample article Project Structure > mysite/￿￿￿ > content￿￿￿ > Makefile￿￿￿ > output￿￿￿ > pelicanconf.py￿￿￿ > publishconf.py￿￿￿ > tasks.py Jaime Arias Creating Static Sites with Pelican B 7 /27
8. 3. Creating Pages Jaime Arias Creating Static Sites with Pelican B 8 /27
9. Creating Pages Trick If you create a folder named pages inside the content folder, all the files in it will be used to generate static pages, such as About or Contact pages. Creating an About Page > mkdir -p content/pages > echo "Title: About" >> content/pages/about.md Project Structure with Pages > mysite/￿￿￿ > content￿￿￿￿ > pages￿￿￿￿ > about.md￿￿￿ > Makefile￿￿￿ > output￿￿￿ > pelicanconf.py￿￿￿ > publishconf.py￿￿￿ > tasks.py Jaime Arias Creating Static Sites with Pelican B 9 /27
10. 4. Generating the Site Jaime Arias Creating Static Sites with Pelican B 10 /27
11. Generation of the Site • From your site directory, run the pelican command to generate your site. It will generate your site and save it in the output/ folder. Generating the Site > pelican content • Preview your site by navigating to http://localhost:8000/ in your browser Serving the Site Locally > pelican --autoreload --listen Jaime Arias Creating Static Sites with Pelican B 11 /27
12. Generation of the Site Jaime Arias Creating Static Sites with Pelican B 12 /27
13. 5. Plugins Jaime Arias Creating Static Sites with Pelican B 13 /27
14. Plugins • Repository → https://github.com/getpelican/pelican-plugins Installation: 1. Create a plugins/ directory in your project 2. Clone the plugin repository into this directory and remove the .git folder Cloning the Plugins > cd plugins > git clone https://github.com/VorpalBlade/pelican-cite > rm -rf pelican-cite/.git 3. Update your pelicanconf.py to use the new plugin # Specify the plugins you want to use and their paths PLUGIN_PATHS = ["plugins"] PLUGINS = ['pelican-cite'] 4. Read the documentation of the plugin to know how to configure it Jaime Arias Creating Static Sites with Pelican B 14 /27
15. Plugins pelican-cite Plugin • Installation of dependencies (update the requirements.txt file): Installing Dependencies > pip install pybtex • Create a data/ directory in your project and add your BibTeX file there Adding a BibTeX File > mkdir -p data > cp /path/to/your/publications.bib data/ • Update your pelicanconf.py to load the BibTeX file # Specify the path to your BibTeX file PUBLICATIONS_SRC = 'data/publications.bib' Jaime Arias Creating Static Sites with Pelican B 15 /27
16. Plugins pelican-cite Plugin Jaime Arias Creating Static Sites with Pelican B 16 /27
17. 6. Themes Jaime Arias Creating Static Sites with Pelican B 17 /27
18. Themes • Jinja2 templates → https://jinja.palletsprojects.com • Repository → https://github.com/getpelican/pelican-themes • Live demos → https://pelicanthemes.com/ Installation: 1. Create a themes/ directory in your project 2. Clone the theme repository into this directory and remove the .git folder Cloning a Theme > cd themes > git clone https://github.com/jvanz/pelican-hyde > rm -rf pelican-hyde/.git 3. Update your pelicanconf.py to use the new theme # Specify name of a theme installed THEME = 'themes/pelican-hyde' 4. Read the documentation of the theme to know how to configure it Jaime Arias Creating Static Sites with Pelican B 18 /27
19. Themes Jaime Arias Creating Static Sites with Pelican B 19 /27
20. 7. Publishing the Site Jaime Arias Creating Static Sites with Pelican B 20 /27
21. Publishing the Site GitLab Pages Jaime Arias Creating Static Sites with Pelican B 21 /27
22. Publishing the Site GitLab Pages • You need to activate the runners in GitLab to publish your site Jaime Arias Creating Static Sites with Pelican B 22 /27
23. Publishing the Site GitLab Pages • You need to configure Gitlab Pages to no use unique domains Jaime Arias Creating Static Sites with Pelican B 23 /27
24. Publishing the Site GitLab Pages • You need to create a .gitlab-ci.yml file in the root of your project with the following content: 1 image: python:3.13-alpine 2 3 pages: 4 stage: deploy 5 script: 6 - apk add --update --no-cache make 7 - pip install -r requirements.txt 8 - make publish 9 - mv output public # GitLab Pages expects the site to be in "public" 10 artifacts: 11 paths: 12 - public/ Jaime Arias Creating Static Sites with Pelican B 24 /27
25. Publishing the Site GitLab Pages Jaime Arias Creating Static Sites with Pelican B 25 /27
26. Publishing the Site LIPN – public_html • You can publish your site using the public_html folder on the server • Your site will be available at https://lipn.univ-paris13.fr/~user • To publish your site, you need to follow these steps: 1. Modify the publishconf.py file to set the correct URL prefix SITEURL = 'https://lipn.univ-paris13.fr/~user' 2. Generate your site locally for production Generating the Site for Production > make publish 3. Copy the generated site to the public_html directory on the server Publishing to LIPN Server > scp -r output/* user@lipnssh.univ-paris13.fr:~/public_html/ Jaime Arias Creating Static Sites with Pelican B 26 /27
27. Creating Static Sites with Pelican B Jaime Arias arias@lipn.univ-paris13.fr Laboratoire d’Informatique de Paris Nord (LIPN) April 9, 2026 Jaime Arias Creating Static Sites with Pelican B 27 /27