Issue with GH Actions: site is build, hosted, but no content

[skramm]

Hi,
New user here, used to have a hosted Wordpress for ages, but finally realizing there was no added value for what I use it, so here I am starting with Pelican. First impressions ave very positive, great job!

I plan to use a github pages hosting, so I did carefully read these pages:
https://docs.getpelican.com/en/4.9.1/tips.html#publishing-to-github-pages-using-a-custom-github-actions-workflow

But I wanted to store in the repo only the content folder, not all the Pelican system files, to keep the repo clean.
From my knowledge of how GH actions work (I used it for other projects), GH provides a "runner" on which all the actions are build, and then the produced content is moved to the "hosting" part.
So I assumed this must be possible.

So first, I made a try: in some local folder, I ran the "quickstart":
($ pelican-quickstart)

Then I moved the content folder up a level, added a Markdown page in content/pages, and did:
$ pelican ../content --listen

Worked fine, I see the Pelican site and page locally, so I understand that Pelican is able to build a site whose content is outside of the Pelican main folder.

Now my problem:
I have set up a repo dedicated to my content, added the .github/workflows/pelican.yml as given above, added a content/pages/dummy1.md file.
Also added at the repo top level the two configuration files pelicanconf.py and publishconf.py.

Nothing special in these, I saw that the first one has a
PATH = "content" parameter/value, so I assumed that was fine.

Now, commit, push, checking on GH actions, I see green/green for "deploy/build" and "deploy/deploy".
And I do see online the Pelican site, but... no content, the top banner says "This site currently has no content."

I tried changing the PATH variable in pelicanconf.py to ./content but that didn't change anything.

Any idea how I can make that work?

[skramm]

Ah... seems my problem is solved

I did actually read this discussion before posting: #3174
(and the associated workflow file)
But as it was very similar to the "official" workflow file, I assumed that it had already had been merged to the main docs.
So I didn't try it before (verrrry sorry), and just did:
So: just replaced the line:

uses: "getpelican/pelican/.github/workflows/github_pages.yml@master"

by

uses: seanh/pelican-github-pages/.github/workflows/pelican.yml@main

And that magically solved the issue. My content is now visible online.

But the question could be still relevant: what is the problem with the "official" workflow GH file? Did I miss something?

[avaris]

Did I miss something?

I'm going to guess: yes. Especially the requirements option description:

The Python requirements to install, for example to enable markdown and typogrify use: "pelican[markdown] typogrify" or if you have a requirements file: "-r requirements.txt"

Default github pages workflow does not install markdown and I suspect that's your issue.

[skramm]

Thanks for your reply.
Ok, I got it. I assumed wrongly that Markdown support was inherent to Pelican.
After re-reading, I can see that this is clearly stated:

Markdown generation requires that you first explicitly install the Python-Markdown package, which can be done via pip install Markdown.

So, I assume that the workflow file provided by @seanh does install this package on the GH runner, while the "official" workflow file does not.
After checking, I can see indeed that line in his file

Closing, and thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

[seanh]

Hi @skramm, to use Markdown with the official GitHub Actions workflow include requirements: "pelican[markdown]" in the with: section in your workflow file. For example:

name: Deploy to GitHub Pages
on:
  push:
    branches: ["main"]
  workflow_dispatch:
jobs:
  deploy:
    uses: "getpelican/pelican/.github/workflows/github_pages.yml@master"
    permissions:
      contents: "read"
      pages: "write"
      id-token: "write"
    with:
      settings: "publishconf.py"
      requirements: "pelican[markdown]"

Docs: https://docs.getpelican.com/en/latest/tips.html#publishing-to-github-pages-using-a-custom-github-actions-workflow

[skramm]

Thanks !
Actually, yours is working perfectly (but I assume with that mod they are more or less the same ! ;-) )

[seanh]

More or less, yes. I'd recommend using the official one, as I don't provide any guarantees about maintaining mine

[skramm]

Ok, got it, I'll move on, thank you.