
Quickstart
**********

Reading through all the documentation is highly recommended, but for
the truly impatient, following are some quick steps to get started.


Installation
============

Install Pelican (and optionally Markdown if you intend to use it) on
Python 2.7.x or Python 3.3+ by running the following command in your
preferred terminal, prefixing with "sudo" if permissions warrant:

   pip install pelican markdown


Create a project
================

First, choose a name for your project, create an appropriately-named
directory for your site, and switch to that directory:

   mkdir -p ~/projects/yoursite
   cd ~/projects/yoursite

Create a skeleton project via the "pelican-quickstart" command, which
begins by asking some questions about your site:

   pelican-quickstart

For questions that have default values denoted in brackets, feel free
to use the Return key to accept those default values. When asked for
your URL prefix, enter your domain name as indicated (e.g.,
"http://example.com").


Create an article
=================

You cannot run Pelican until you have created some content. Use your
preferred text editor to create your first article with the following
content:

   Title: My First Review
   Date: 2010-12-03 10:20
   Category: Review

   Following is a review of my favorite mechanical keyboard.

Given that this example article is in Markdown format, save it as
"~/projects/yoursite/content/keyboard-review.md".


Generate your site
==================

From your site directory, run the "pelican" command to generate your
site:

   pelican content

Your site has now been generated inside the "output" directory. (You
may see a warning related to feeds, but that is normal when developing
locally and can be ignored for now.)


Preview your site
=================

Open a new terminal session and run the following commands to switch
to your "output" directory and launch Pelican's web server:

   cd ~/projects/yoursite/output
   python -m pelican.server

Preview your site by navigating to http://localhost:8000/ in your
browser.

Continue reading the other documentation sections for more detail, and
check out the Pelican wiki's Tutorials page for links to community-
published tutorials.
