seafoam 2.10.3

Pelican theme, first used for Minchin.ca.

Seafoam is a theme for Pelican, a static site generator written in Python.

The seafoam theme is based on Bootstrap 3, and was first used at Minchin.ca.

Installation

The easiest way to install the seafoam theme is through the use of pip. This will also install the required dependencies automatically.

pip install seafoam

Alternatively, you can force the installation of lxml, which is a HTML parser that is often faster than the default, and will be used if installed:

pip install seafoam[lxml]

If you are using Pelican v4.5 or newer and only namespace plugins, seafoam is set up as a namespace plugin and will automatically activate and configure itself.

If you are using a version of Pelican older that v4.5 or non-namespace plugins, you will need to add seafoam to your list of plugins:

# pelicanconf.py

PLUGINS = [
    "pelican.plugins.seafoam",
    # others, as desired...
]

# the rest of the your configuration file...

You may also need to configure the theme through the use of additional settings (see below).

Requirements

Seafoam requires Pelican, the image_process plugin, the jinja filters plugin, beautifulsoup4, and semantic_version. If the theme is installed from pip, these should be automatically installed. If needed, they can be manually installed with pip:

pip install pelican
pip install pelican-image-process
pip install pelican-jinja-filters
pip install beautifulsoup4
pip install semantic_version

Supported Plugins

Seafoam also works with several other plugins for Pelican, but none of those listed in this section are required.

• microblogging – adds the ability to have “microposts”, and tweaks the formatting of the theme based on their (assumed) shorter length.

• readtime – provides estimated reading time for articles. Available from PyPI as pelican-readtime.

• post-stats – provides estimated reading time for articles if readtime is not available. Available in the Pelican Plugins collection.

• neighbors – provides post-article links to the next and previous article on your blog and the next and previous article in that category. Available on PyPI as pelican-neighours.

• static-comments (or the older pelican_comment_system) – add static comments to your blog. Available on PyPI as minchin.pelican.plugins.static-comments.

• Related Posts – adds the related_posts variable to the article’s context.

• Tipue Search

• Fancy Tasklists (Checkboxes) – this extends the Markdown checkboxes to display a number of icons instead.

Additional Images

Article with header image

Main article body

Comments

Comment Form

Main Archives

Yearly Archives

Monthly Archives

404 Error Page

Fancy Checkboxes / Tasklist

Additional Settings

These settings can be set in your pelicanconf.py file (your Pelican settings file) to alter the behavior of the theme.

If a value is given below, this represents the effective default value. If no value is given, the effective default value is None.

If you are using this theme on a sub-site (i.e a directory of the “main site”), look at MENUITEMS_2, MENUITEMS_2_AT, and MENUITEMS_2_AT_LINK settings.

If you are using this theme on a subdomain, look at the SITE_ROOT_URL setting.

If you want to disable Image Process for local development, see SEAFOAM_DEV_MODE.

Seafoam also auto-configures itself when possible. If you need to manually create the default configuration, you would need the following:

# pelicanconf.py

from pelican.plugins import seafoam

THEME = seafoam.get_path()
BOOTSTRAP_THEME = "seafoam"

# if PLUGINS is not defined on Pelican 4.5+, these plugins will autoload
PLUGINS = [
    "pelican.plugins.seafoam",
    "pelican.plugins.jinja_filters",
    "pelican.plugins.image_process",
    # others, as desired...
]

IMAGE_PROCESS = {
  "article-feature": ["scale_in 848 848 True"],
  "index-feature": ["scale_in 263 263 True"],
}

# Generate 404 error page
TEMPLATE_PAGES = {
    "404.html": "404.htm"',
}

# the rest of the your configuration file...

This documentation has to be manually updated. If the settings no longer match the theme’s behavior, or a setting is missing from here, please open a ticket on GitHub.

ABOUT_ME

You can show a short blurb of text about yourself and a picture. This setting is the paragraph. Raw HTML is accepted. See the AVATAR setting to set the picture.

ADAM

These ADAM settings were originally set up to support my genealogy sub-site (the original name of the the pre-processor I was using as called “Adam”). If this is set to False, the rest of the ADAM_* settings won’t be active. These settings are probably generic enough that you could use these for any generator or outside program used to help generate your site.

ADAM_COPY_DATE

Override the copyright date in the footer. (Provide a string).

ADAM_FOOTER

An extra “page footer” to apply to all pages. (Provide an HTML string.)

ADAM_LINK

Link target for the Adam version text.

ADAM_UPDATED

Override the updated date.

ADAM_VERSION

Reported name and version of “Adam”.

ADDTHIS_PROFILE

You can enable sharing buttons through AddThis by this setting to your AddThis profile-id. This will display a Tweet, Facebook Like and Google +1 button under each post.

ARCHIVES_URL

Same as the regular Pelican setting.

ASSET_CSS

Set to True if you want the asset plugin to compile your CSS.

ASSET_JS

Set to True if you want the asset plugin to compile your Javascript.

AUTHOR

Who to list as the copyright belonging to in the site footer.

AUTHORS_URL

Same as the regular Pelican setting.

AVATAR

You can show a short blurb of text about yourself and a picture. This setting is the path to the picture. See the ABOUT_ME setting to set the descriptive paragraph.

BOOTSTRAP_NAVBAR_INVERSE = False

Apply inverse CSS setting to Navbar. Changing this will swap the top navigation bar between light and dark.

BOOTSTRAP_THEME = “seafoam”

Use this to set the “colour scheme” of the framework. Valid values are seafoam and strathcona. seafoam teal on darker green; strathcona is maroon on white. This is a Automatically set to seafoam by the internal plugin if unspecified. Other values (including leaving this unset) are not expected to work correctly.

CATEGORIES_URL

Same as the regular Pelican setting.

CATEGORY_IMAGES = {}

Provide a default featured image by category. If an image is set in the article metadata, that will override this.

Provide a dictionary where the key is the category name and the value is the path of the image, relative to the SITEURL.

CC_ATTR_MARKUP

Optionally, you can include attribution markup in the CC license mark by setting this to True.

CC_LICENSE

Set a site-wide Creative Commons License by specify the “short name” of the license (like CC_BY, or CC-BY-NC-ND). Alternately, use CC_LICENSE_COMMERCIAL and CC_LICENSE_DERIVATIVES to “build a license”.

CC_LICENSE_COMMERCIAL

“yes” if commercial use is permitted, “no” otherwise. Use this in lieu of CC_LICENSE and in combination with CC_LICENSE_DERIVATIVES to “build a license”.

CC_LICENSE_DERIVATIVES

“yes” is derivatives are permitted, “no” otherwise. Use this in lieu of CC_LICENSE and in combination with CC_LICENSE_COMMERCIAL to “build a license”.

CUSTOM_CSS

Link, relative to SITEURL, to a custom CSS file.

CUSTOM_CSS_LIST = []

Custom CSS to load; can be either absolute links, or relative links. If the listed item starts with //, http://, https://, it is assumed to be absolute link and added as-is to the markup. Otherwise, the link is assumed to be relative to SITEURL.

CUSTOM_JS_LIST = []

Custom Javascript to load; can be either scripts, absolute links, or relative links. If the listed item starts with <script, then the item is assumed to be the contents of a script, including opening and closing tags, and so added to the pages’ markup directly. If the listed item starts with //, http://, https://, it is assumed to be absolute link and added as-is to the markup. Otherwise, the link is assumed to be relative to SITEURL.

See also CUSTOM_JS_LIST_HEAD and JQUERY_JS_IN_HEAD.

CUSTOM_JS_LIST_HEAD = []

Exactly the same format as CUSTOM_JS_LIST, but is added to the pages’ <head> section rather than the end of the page. Generally, you will want to put your Javascript at the end of the page (i.e. in CUSTOM_JS_LIST rather than here), as any Javascript referenced here must generally be completely loaded before the page will start being rendered.

When JQUERY_JS_IN_HEAD == True (not the default), JQuery is listed before the other scripts listed here.

See also CUSTOM_JS_LIST and JQUERY_JS_IN_HEAD.

DEFAULT_LANG

.

DISPLAY_ARCHIVES_ON_MENU = True

Include archives on the main site menu.

DISPLAY_BREADCRUMBS = False

Display Breadcrumbs on site.

See also MENUITEMS_2_AT and MENUITEMS_2_AT_LINK settings.

DISPLAY_CATEGORIES_ON_MENU

Include categories on the main site menu.

DISPLAY_CATEGORIES_ON_SIDEBAR

Include a listing of categories on the sidebar (assuming the sidebar is active; see HIDE_SIDEBAR setting)

DISPLAY_PAGES_ON_MENU

Include a listing of pages on the sidebar (assuming the sidebar is active; see HIDE_SIDEBAR setting)

DISPLAY_RECENT_POSTS_ON_SIDEBAR

Include a listing of recent posts on the sidebar (assuming the sidebar is active; see HIDE_SIDEBAR setting). Also see the RECENT_POST_COUNT setting.

DISPLAY_TAGS_INLINE

.

DISPLAY_TAGS_ON_SIDEBAR = True

Include a listing of tags on the sidebar (assuming the sidebar is active; see HIDE_SIDEBAR setting)

DISQUS_DISPLAY_COUNTS

Display the number of comments (assuming Disqus comments are active; see DISQUS_SITENAME settings)

DISQUS_ID_PREFIX_SLUG

Set this to True if you have configured your article URLs such that the slug alone will likely not be unique. Ignored if DISQUS_NO_ID is True.

DISQUS_NO_ID

This theme sets identifiers for each article’s comment threads. If you are switching from a theme that doesn’t (such as the Pelican built-in default) this will result in existing comments getting lost. To prevent this, set this setting to True.

DISQUS_SITENAME

Set to your Disqus sitename to activate Disqus comments on your site.

You can also enable Disqus comments for pages. This is a per-page setting you can control by adding a field comments to you pages’ metadata. Set it to enabled to enable comments for that page. Comment-threads for pages will have an id that is prefixed by page-.

You will probably only use this or the Pelican Comment System; odd results may come if you try to use both together. See the PELICAN_COMMENT_SYSTEM setting.

DOCUTIL_CSS

If you’re using reStructuredText for writing articles and pages, you can include the extra CSS styles that are used by the docutils-generated HTML by setting this to True. This can be done as a global setting or setting it in the metadata of a specific article or page.

FAVICON

The location of your site’s FavIcon, relative to the SITEURL.

FEED_ALL_ATOM

Same as the regular Pelican setting. If set, a link to your Atom feed will appear in the site’s HTML header and as a link in the footer of the site.

FEED_ALL_RSS

Same as the regular Pelican setting. If set, a link to your RSS feed will appear in the site’s HTML header.

GITHUB_REPO_COUNT = 5

See GITHUB_USER setting.

GITHUB_SHOW_USER_LINK

See GITHUB_USER setting.

GITHUB_SKIP_FORK = False

See GITHUB_USER setting.

GITHUB_USER

The theme can show your most recently active GitHub repos in the sidebar. To enable, set this to you GitHub username. Appearance and behavior can be controlled using the GITHUB_REPO_COUNT, GITHUB_SKIP_FORK, and GITHUB_SHOW_USER_LINK variables.

GOOGLE_ANALYTICS

Used to activate “classic” Google Analytics. Set this to your account’s Google Analytics ID. Although this setting doesn’t conflict with GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_UNIVERSAL, you will in most cases only use one or the other. This has been deprecated by Google; see GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_V4.

GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_UNIVERSAL

Used to activate “universal” Google Analytics (this is the new version). Set this to your account’s ID (a number). Also set GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_UNIVERSAL_PROPERTY. Although this setting doesn’t conflict with GOOGLE_ANALYTICS, you will in most cases only use one or the other. This has been deprecated by Google (in June 2023); see GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_V4.

GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_UNIVERSAL_PROPERTY

Set this to the Google Analytics “property” this site represents. See also (and set) GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_UNIVERSAL.

GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_V4

Set this to activate Google Analytics v4.

HIDE_SIDEBAR = False

Hides the sidebar, and all it’s contents. Also review the settings DISPLAY_CATEGORIES_ON_SIDEBAR, DISPLAY_RECENT_POSTS_ON_SIDEBAR, DISPLAY_TAGS_ON_SIDEBAR, GITHUB_USER, LINKS, and TWITTER_USERNAME.

HIDE_SITENAME = False

Hides the sitename in the site navbar.

IMAGE_PROCESS = {“article-feature”: [“scale_in 848 848 True”], “index-feature”: [“scale_in 263 263 True”],}

Used by the image process plugin. The “article-feature” and “index-feature” configurations are set by the included plugin if not set in your configuration to something else.

INDEX_COPY_DATE

Copyright date to display on the index page (homepage) of the site.

JQUERY_JS_IN_HEAD = False

Bootstrap depends on JQuery. Typically, good practice is to load all your Javascript from the end of your page. However, in certain cases, I’ve needed to load JQuery sooner. So this moves loading JQuery from the end of the page to the header. When active, JQuery is listed before the other scripts in CUSTOM_JS_LIST_HEAD. See also CUSTOM_JS_LIST_HEAD.

LINKS = []

Extra links to display sidebar. Provide a list of tuples of the form ('name', 'link').

MENUITEMS

Extra items to add to the menu. Provide a list of tuples of the form (title, link, icon). link is absolute, so build them using SITEURL, if needed. icon here is of the form of the CSS classes to be used; e.g. 'fa fa-fw fa-pencil'. icon can be set to None.

If this is set, the working assumption is that the site you are generating is a “sub-site”.

MENUITEMS_2

Extra items you want added as a sub-menu. Use in conjunction with the MENUITEMS_2_AT setting. Provide a list of tuples of the form (title, link, icon). link is absolute, so build them using SITEURL, if needed. icon here is of the form of the CSS classes to be used; e.g. 'fa fa-fw fa-pencil'. icon can be set to None.

This setting is working on the assumption that your generated site in going into a subdirectory of your “main” site.

MENUITEMS_2_AT

If MENUITEMS_2 is set, under which (main) menu item are these to be displayed. This should match a “name” of one of the items on MENUITEMS; if no match is found, these sub-menu items will not be displayed.

When set and Breadcrumbs are enabled, all items on the site are shown to be under both “home” (linked to at the SITE_ROOT_URL) and MENUITEMS_2_AT (linked to at MENUITEMS_2_AT_LINK).

MENUITEMS_2_AT_LINK

When set and Breadcrumbs are enabled, all items on the site are shown to be under both “home” (linked to at the SITE_ROOT_URL) and MENUITEMS_2_AT (linked to at MENUITEMS_2_AT_LINK).

MICROBLOG_DEV_URL

The project url for the microblogging plugin. Provided by the plugin, when in use.

MICROBLOG_VERSION

The version of the microblogging plugin. Provided by the plugin, when in use.

NAVBAR_ON_TOP = False

If True, the navigation menu is on top. If False, the navigation menu is vertical on the left side of the page. Default is False.

NEIGHBORS

Activates the links to the next and previous articles, both in the “all posts” index and the category-specific index. Requires the neighbors to be both installed and activated (i.e. listed under PLUGINS).

OPEN_GRAPH_FB_APP_ID

You can use this setting to provide a Facebook app id. See the USE_OPEN_GRAPH setting.

OPEN_GRAPH_IMAGE

A default image to use with Open Graph. This is a filepath relative to your SITEURL. See the USE_OPEN_GRAPH setting.

PAGINATOR_LIMIT = 8

Number of page number links to appear of the main “index” page of your blog. The default of 8 results in showing a link to page 1, links the three previous pages (8 divided by 2 and rounded down), a number representing the current page, links to the next three pages, and a link to the last page.

PDF_PROCESSOR

.

PELICAN_COMMENT_SYSTEM = False

Set this to True to active the pelican_comment_system.

The Pelican Comment System has further settings that are not used directly by the theme.

You will probably only use this or Disqus; odd results may come if you try to use both together. See also the DISQUS_SITENAME setting.

PELICAN_COMMENT_SYSTEM_DISPLAY_COUNTS = True

Whether to display the number of comments

PELICAN_COMMENT_SYSTEM_EMAIL_DOMAIN

The domain name of the email where you want the comments to be emailed to (i.e. the part after the @ sign). See the PELICAN_COMMENT_SYSTEM_EMAIL_USER and PELICAN_COMMENT_SYSTEM settings.

PELICAN_COMMENT_SYSTEM_EMAIL_USER

The username of the email where you want the comments to be emailed to (i.e. the part before the @ sign). See the PELICAN_COMMENT_SYSTEM_EMAIL_DOMAIN and PELICAN_COMMENT_SYSTEM setting.

PELICAN_COMMENT_SYSTEM_FEED, PELICAN_COMMENT_SYSTEM_FEED_ALL

Used internally to generate links to the Comment RSS/Atoms feeds.

PELICAN_COMMENT_SYSTEM_IDENTICON_SIZE = 72

The size of the Identicons generated by the Pelican Comment System.

PIWIK_SITE_ID

Used for Piwik site analytics.

PIWIK_SSL_URL = PIWIK_URL

Used for Piwik site analytics.

PIWIK_URL

Used for Piwik site analytics.

PLUGINS

Same as the regular Pelican setting. If you set this, be sure to include the internal plugin pelican.plugins.seafoam to get the theme to auto-configure itself.

PRJCT

Set to TRUE to active prjct support. Recommended segment to include in your pelicanconf.py:

# pelicanconf.py

import prjct

PRJCT = True
PRJCT_TODO, PRJCT_DONE = prjct.todo_export.to_html_dicts()
PRJCT_PROJECTS = prjct.multi_source.project_list()
PRJCT_ACTIVE_PROJECTS = prjct.multi_source.active_project_list()
PRJCT_SOMEDAY_PROJECTS = prjct.config.someday_projects()
PRJCT_COMPLETED_PROJECTS = prjct.config.completed_projects()
PRJCT_DESC = prjct.descriptions.to_html_dict(
    markdown_extension_config=MARKDOWN['extension_configs']
)
PRJCT_VERSION = prjct.__version__
PRJCT_FOOTER_URL = prjct.__url__

Also add prjct to our direct templates list.

PRJCT_ACTIVE_PROJECTS

A list of active projects. Used to sort projects on the main prjct page. See the PRJCT setting.

PRJCT_COMPLETED_PROJECTS

A list of active projects. Used to sort projects on the main prjct page. See the PRJCT setting.

PRJCT_DESC

A dictionary of descriptions for each project, where the key is the name of the project, and will match the tag page where the output appears. The return value is assumed to be a valid HTML segment. See the PRJCT setting.

PRJCT_DONE

A dictionary of done to-do items for each project, where the key is the name of the project, and will match the tag page where the output appears. The return value is assumed to be a valid HTML segment. See the PRJCT setting.

PRJCT_FOOTER_URL = ‘https://github.com/MinchinWeb/prjct’

prjct URL used for link displayed in footer. See the PRJCT setting.

PRJCT_SOMEDAY_PROJECTS

A list of active projects. Used to sort projects on the main prjct page. See the PRJCT setting.

PRJCT_TODO

A dictionary of open to-do items for each project, where the key is the name of the project, and will match the tag page where the output appears. The return value is assumed to be a valid HTML segment. See the PRJCT setting.

PRJCT_VERSION = ‘’

prjct version displayed in footer. See the PRJCT setting.

PYGMENTS_STYLE = ‘native’

This setting is currently ignored, and my preferred Pygments style is included directly into the Seafoam CSS.

RECENT_POST_COUNT = 5

Number of recent posts to display on the sidebar. See the DISPLAY_RECENT_POSTS_ON_SIDEBAR setting.

RELATED_POSTS_TEXT = ‘Related Posts:’

Header for related posts listing. Requires that the Related Posts Plugin be active.

SEAFOAM_DEV_MODE = False

Enable this to speed local development by (effectively) disabling the Image Process plugin. If you disable this in your pelicanconf.py, you’ll likely want to activate it in your publishconf.py file.

SEAFOAM_ENCODING = “uft-8”

The encoding that Beautiful Soup uses when run by the internal plugin.

SEAFOAM_PARSER = “html.parser”

Will be set to “lxml” is it is installed (which is the case with the most recent versions of the required image-process plugin).

This is the parser that Beautiful Soup uses when run by the internal plugin.

SEAFOAM_URL = “http://blog.minchin.ca/label/seafoam/”

The project url of the theme (automatically provided by the bundled plugin).

SEAFOAM_VERSION = pelican.plugins.seafoam.__version__

The version of the theme (automatically provided by the bundled plugin).

SITELOGO

Link to the site logo (displayed in the navbar). This is relative to the SITEURL.

SITELOGO_SIZE

The width of the site logo in the navbar. Can be set to any valid CSS value (i.e. %, em, px, etc). I have had good luck setting this to 100%.

SITENAME

The name of your site, displayed in the navbar.

SITEURL

Same as the Pelican setting. Set this to where this Pelican site is actually hosted. Also see the SITE_ROOT_URL setting.

SITE_ROOT_URL = SITEURL

Use this if you’re hosting a subsite of some sort. This is where the links in logo in the navbar and the home icon in the breadcrumbs will point to. See also the MENUITEMS_2_AT setting.

SOCIAL

A list of your social media sites to be listed in the sidebar. Should be a list of tuples in the form (‘social network name’, ‘full link to profile’). The theme will display the logo of the network. See the HIDE_SIDEBAR setting.

TAGS_TEXT = “Tags”

Text used as the header to “Tags” (articles can be filed under multiple tags, but assumes to be under a single (or no) category. Assumed to be plural.

TAGS_URL

Same as the Pelican setting.

TEMPLATE_PAGES = {“404.html”: “404.html”,}

Same as the Pelican setting. Automatically set by the internal plugin to enable a 404 error page on GitHub pages (and perhaps elsewhere).

THEME = pelican.plugins.seafoam.get_path()

Same as the Pelican setting. Automatically set by the internal plugin.

THEME_STATIC_DIR

Same as the Pelican setting.

TWITTER_USERNAME

You can optionally provide a this which will be used to set the Twitter username for the site and for the content creator.

TWITTER_WIDGET_ID

The theme can show your twitter timeline in the sidebar. To enable, provide a TWITTER_USERNAME and a TWITTER_WIDGET_ID.

To get a TWITTER_WIDGET_ID, go to: https://twitter.com/settings/widgets and select Create new. You’ll find the TWITTER_WIDGET_ID under the html or in the site url:

https://twitter.com/settings/widgets/TWITTER_WIDGET_ID/edit

TYPOGRIFY

Whether to activate Typography. Tyopgraphy is a library that automatically adds a number of typographical flourishes. The necessary CSS is automatically included in the seafoam CSS.

The Typography Python library will needs to be installed, which is installable via pip: pip install typogrify

Note that with Pelican 3.6, activating both the Pelican Comment System and Typography at the same time cause issues. This issue was fixed in Pelican 3.7.

USE_OPEN_GRAPH = True

In order to make the Facebook “like” button and other social sharing options work better, the template contains Open Graph metatags like <meta property="og:type" content="article"/>. You can disable them by setting this to False.

See also OPEN_GRAPH_FB_APP_ID, and OPEN_GRAPH_FB_APP_ID settings.

It may also be helpful to review the settings for Pelican itself.

On articles, the theme also looks for the image metadata setting to provide the “featured image* for the article.

Known Issues

• activating both Typogrify and the Pelican Comment System on Pelican 3.6 causes issues. This issue has been fixed in Pelican 3.7.

• minification (specifically, pelican-minify) breaks the included jQuery and causes random spacing issues. I have had on and off issues since forever with minification, but my current suggestion is to turn it off. The latest indication that something was wrong was that the navigation pull down menu wouldn’t work on narrow screens.

Credits

Original theme developed by Daan Debie.

The idea that a theme could be installed as a Python package by Jeff Forcier’s Alabaster theme for Sphinx.