Getting started

Genja is distributed on PyPI. Instructions for installing and using Genja are given below.

Installation

Download and install Python from https://www.python.org or from Anaconda at https://www.anaconda.com. After installing Python, create and activate a virtual environment as shown below:

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate

Install the Genja package in your Python environment using pip:

pip install genja

Check the installed version from the command line:

genja --version

Usage

Before running genja, create a project structure as shown below. Or create a new example project by using the genja new command. Markdown files go into the pages and posts directories. The pages directory is for standalone content that is not dated such as an about page or contact page. The posts directory is for dated content such as blog posts or articles. The templates directory contains Jinja templates that are used to render the HTML pages and posts. The mysite directory contains the built website which can be hosted with GitHub Pages or some other web hosting platform. Lastly, the config.toml defines the URLs and directories for the project.

myproject/
├── mysite/
│   ├── img/
│   └── styles.css
├── pages/
│   ├── about.md
│   └── contact.md
├── posts/
│   ├── apple.md
│   └── orange.md
├── templates/
│   ├── index.html
│   ├── page.html
│   └── post.html
└── config.toml

The items in the config.toml are shown below. The base_url is the URL for the homepage of the website. The posts_output defines the output directory for the generated HTML posts. All of the HTML files generated from Genja are located in the site_output directory. Static content such as images and CSS files should go in this directory. The title of the website is defined by the title key.

base_url = "https://example.com"
posts_output = "blog"
site_output = "mysite"
title = "My Website"

Use the serve command to build the website and start a local server. This will automatically open the default web browser to view the website. The website will automatically reload when changes are saved to the Markdown files.

genja serve

Use the build command to build the website without running a local server.

genja build

Use the clean command to remove all the generated HTML files and the JSON feed file.

genja clean