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 project 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 Python's built-in web server::

    cd ~/projects/yoursite/output
    python -m SimpleHTTPServer

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.

.. _Tutorials: https://github.com/getpelican/pelican/wiki/Tutorials