This plugin simplifies adding SVG or webfont icons on your Pelican website content (pages and articles).
This plugin can be installed via:
pip install pelican-icons
This a "namespace plugin" for Pelican. After installation, it should be automatically
detected. It is enabled by default if PLUGINS
is not set on your configuration. In
case that variable is set, add icons
to the list of plugins to load. For more
information, check How to Use
Plugins
documentation.
There are 2 techniques implemented in this plugin to use icons in your article and pages, each with particular advantages.
To embed SVG icons directly on your articles and pages, copy SVG files under a path
indicated by the configuration variable ICONS_SVG_PATH
(default: svg
), then simply
refer to the files by name (relative path, and without the .svg
extension) on your
articles.
In RST articles and pages, use something like:
:svg:`fa/circle-check`, to load the contents from `<ICONS_SVG_PATH>/fa/circle-check.svg`.
In Markdown articles and pages, use something like:
{svg}`fa/circle-check`, to load the contents from `<ICONS_SVG_PATH>/fa/circle-check.svg`.
This will cause the SVG file to be directly embedded in the output HTML page for content in question, generating something like:
<svg aria-hidden="true" focusable="false" class="icon" fill="currentColor" width="1em" height="1em">...</svg>
Note that by default, SVG icons are embedded in HTML with the following attributes:
{
"aria-hidden": "true",
"focusable": "false",
"fill": "currentColor",
"width": "1em",
"height": "1em",
}
This typically makes the icon match the size and color of the surrounding text, for as
long as the original SVG file root element or sub-elements do not override the attribute
fill
. In such cases, it is recommended you edit the SVG file, either manually or
automatically to remove such hard-coded values.
To change the color and resize the inserted icon, or modify other SVG tag attributes, simply use the alternate syntax below:
:svg:`fa/circle-check{"fill":"red"}` is a red circle
:svg:`fa/circle-check{"width":"2em","height":"2em"}` is a large circle
:svg:`fa/circle-check{"fill":"green","width":"3em","height":"3em"}` is an even larger green circle
In Markdown articles and pages, use:
{svg}`fa/circle-check{"fill":"red"}` is a red circle
{svg}`fa/circle-check{"width":"2em","height":"2em"}` is a large circle
{svg}`fa/circle-check{"fill":"green","width":"3em","height":"3em"}` is an even larger green circle
Implementation note: The above alternate syntax modifies the
svg
tag attribute for the inserted icon. Any attribute that can go into ansvg
tag can be set or overriden using this technique. The contents within braces should be a JSON-parseable dictionary containing the attributes you would like to override.
There are various open-source and free repositories with SVG icons you can use on your Pelican website. Some of them are listed below:
- Font-awesome: https://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome
- Boostrap: https://github.com/twbs/icons/releases/
- Material design: https://github.com/Templarian/MaterialDesign
- Material design light: https://github.com/Pictogrammers/MaterialDesignLight
- Tabler icons: https://github.com/tabler/tabler-icons
- Twitter Emoji: https://github.com/twitter/twemoji
You may also display icons using webfonts. The main advantage of this approach compared to the direct SVG icon embedding above is that font files can be cached, potentially speeding up load times.
The process of using a webfont for icon drawing on HTML is composed of 2 parts: a)
injecting one or more CSS files on HTML pages, and then b) adding i
or span
elements
to your content using pre-defined stylesheet classes. Next we explain how to achieve
this within Pelican via this plugin. The process is composed of 3 steps: 1) adjust your
configuration to list all CSS sources that must be included on your templates; 2) modify
your templates to inject the configured CSS sources; 3) refer to icons on your content.
There are 2 ways to list the required CSS so that you can refer to webfont icons on your
content: 1a) shipping yourself CSS and webfont files, or 1b) using a content
distribution network (CDN). You can mix and match as required. However, if you are
shipping yourself the CSS and webfont files, you will need to modify your
pelicanconf.py
so that those files are copied to the output directory. For example:
# Place all resources to be copied verbatim at one of the STATIC_PATHS.
# For example, download font-awesome files at "fonts/font-awesome" and
# bootstrap-icons at "fonts/bootstrap".
# Reference: https://docs.getpelican.com/en/latest/settings.html
STATIC_PATHS = ["fonts"]
In the next step we explain how to inject the CSS sources listed above on your theme templates.
Pelican uses a templating engine to generate HTML pages. It is therefore easier to change the base templates to inject the required CSS code enabling icon drawing from webfonts.
Because of programmatic differences between various Pelican themes, CSS injection
remains theme-specific and may require overwriting one (e.g. base.html
) or more theme
templates. Refer to the Pelican documentation of
THEME_TEMPLATES_OVERRIDES
for
details on how to do this). For the standard themes "simple" or "notmyidea", which are
shipped with Pelican itself, this is rather trivial: override the head block on
base.html
to link a new stylesheet. For example:
{% extends "!simple/base.html" %}
{% block head %}
{{ super() }}
<!-- link stylesheets as required by the webfont -->
<!-- example for free version of fontawesome, shipped on own website, use instead of the one below -->
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/font-awesome/css/fontawesome.min.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/font-awesome/css/solid.min.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/font-awesome/css/brands.min.css" />
<!-- example for free version of fontawesome, from CDN, use instead of the one above -->
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@fortawesome/fontawesome-free@6.7.0/css/fontawesome.min.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@fortawesome/fontawesome-free@6.7.0/css/solid.min.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@fortawesome/fontawesome-free@6.7.0/css/brands.min.css" />
<!-- example for bootstrap-icons, shipped on own website, use instead of the one below -->
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/bootstrap/bootstrap-icons.min.css" />
<!-- example for bootstrap-icons, from CDN, use instead of the one above -->
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/bootstrap-icons@1.11.3/font/bootstrap-icons.min.css" />
{% endblock %}
Create the file at templates/base.html
with the (some of the) above contents, then set
THEME=simple
and THEME_TEMPLATES_OVERRIDES="templates"
at pelicanconf.py
. Adjust
if you are using another theme. Refer to the theme's user guide for details on how to
achieve this.
In RST articles and pages, use something like :icon:<class1> <class2> .. <classN>
like so:
:icon:`fa-solid fa-circle-check`, to print a check in a circle with font-awesome icons.
:icon:`bi bi-check-circle`, to print a check in a circle with boostrap icons.
In Markdown articles and pages, use something like {icon}<class1> <class2> ... <class N>
like so:
{icon}`fa-solid fa-circle-check`, to print a check in a circle with font-awesome icons.
{icon}`bi bi-check-circle`, to print a check in a circle with boostrap icons.
Refer to the documention of the webfont to correctly select the classes related to the icons of interest.
The above syntax is transformed into an output that looks like:
<i class="bi bi-check-circle"></i>
To change the color and resize the inserted icon, so it is different than the surrounding text, simply use the alternate syntax:
:icon:`fa-solid fa-circle-check{"color":"red"}` is a red circle
:icon:`fa-solid fa-circle-check{"font-size":"2em"}` is a large circle
:icon:`fa-solid fa-circle-check{"color":"green","font-size":"3em"}` is an even larger green circle
In Markdown articles and pages, use:
{icon}`fa-solid fa-circle-check{"color":"red"}` is a red circle
{icon}`fa-solid fa-circle-check{"font-size":"2em"}` is a large circle
{icon}`fa-solid fa-circle-check{"color":"green","font-size":"3em"}` is an even larger green circle
The above syntax produces something like:
<span style="color: green; font-size: 3em;"><i class="bi bi-check-circle"></i></span>
Implementation note: The above alternate syntax surrounds the output
i
tag attribute for the inserted icon with a styledspan
tag. Any key-value pair that can appear on thestyle
attribute can be set using this technique. The contents within braces should be a JSON-parseable dictionary containing the attributes you would like to override.
There are various open-source and free repositories with web fonts you can use on your Pelican website. Some of them are listed below:
- Font-awesome: https://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome (or via CDN at https://www.bootstrapcdn.com)
- Boostrap icons: https://github.com/twbs/icons/releases/ (or via CDN at https://www.bootstrapcdn.com)
- Material design: https://github.com/Templarian/MaterialDesign
- Material design light: https://github.com/Pictogrammers/MaterialDesignLight
- Tabler icons: https://github.com/tabler/tabler-icons
Contributions are welcome and appreciated. Every little bit helps. You can contribute by improving the documentation, adding missing features, and fixing bugs. You can also help out by reviewing and commenting on existing issues.
To start contributing to this plugin, review the Contributing to Pelican documentation, beginning with the Contributing Code section.
This plugin is developed using pixi. Install pixi, then checkout this repository.
Prime the development environment with: pixi install
, then run test units with:
pixi run test
pixi run test-cov # runs tests and measures coverage
To run the unit tests for different versions of Python do one or more of the items below:
pixi run -e test39 test
pixi run -e test310 test
pixi run -e test311 test
pixi run -e test312 test
pixi run -e test313 test
Releasing is based on a GitHub workflow, tied to repository tags on the main development branch. Release deployment is conducted automatically on PyPI and GitHub releases after appropriate quality control and testing.
This project is licensed under the MIT license.