Pico/content-sample/index.md

---
Title: Welcome
Description: Pico is a stupidly simple, blazing fast, flat file CMS.
---

## Welcome to Pico

Congratulations, you have successfully installed [Pico](http://picocms.org/).
%meta.description% <!-- replaced by the above Description meta header -->

### Creating Content

Pico is a flat file CMS, this means there is no administration backend or
database to deal with. You simply create `.md` files in the `content-sample`
folder and that becomes a page. For example, this file is called `index.md`
and is shown as the main landing page.

If you create a folder within the content folder (e.g. `content-sample/sub`)
and put an `index.md` inside it, you can access that folder at the URL
`http://yoursite.com/?sub`. If you want another page within the sub folder,
simply create a text file with the corresponding name and you will be able to
access it (e.g. `content-sample/sub/page.md` is accessible from the URL
`http://yoursite.com/?sub/page`). Below we've shown some examples of locations
and their corresponing URLs:

<table style="width: 100%; max-width: 40em;">
    <thead>
        <tr>
            <th style="width: 50%;">Physical Location</th>
            <th style="width: 50%;">URL</th>
        </tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
        <tr>
            <td>content-sample/index.md</td>
            <td><a href="%base_url%">/</a></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>content-sample/sub.md</td>
            <td><del>?sub</del> (not accessible, see below)</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>content-sample/sub/index.md</td>
            <td><a href="%base_url%?sub">?sub</a> (same as above)</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>content-sample/sub/page.md</td>
            <td><a href="%base_url%?sub/page">?sub/page</a></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>content-sample/a/very/long/url.md</td>
            <td><a href="%base_url%?a/very/long/url">?a/very/long/url</a> (doesn't exist)</td>
        </tr>
    </tbody>
</table>

If a file cannot be found, the file `content-sample/404.md` will be shown. You
can add `404.md` files to any directory, so if you want to use a special error
page for your blog, simply create `content-sample/blog/404.md`.

### Text File Markup

Text files are marked up using [Markdown][]. They can also contain regular HTML.

At the top of text files you can place a block comment and specify certain
attributes of the page. For example:

    ---
    Title: Welcome
    Description: This description will go in the meta description tag
    Author: Joe Bloggs
    Date: 2013/01/01
    Robots: noindex,nofollow
    Template: index
    ---

These values will be contained in the `{{ meta }}` variable in themes
(see below).

There are also certain variables that you can use in your text files:

* <code>&#37;site_title&#37;</code> - The title of your Pico site
* <code>&#37;base_url&#37;</code> - The URL to your Pico site; internal links
  can be specified using <code>&#37;base_url&#37;?sub/page</code>
* <code>&#37;theme_url&#37;</code> - The URL to the currently used theme
* <code>&#37;meta.*&#37;</code> - Access any meta variable of the current page,
  e.g. <code>&#37;meta.author&#37;</code> is replaced with `Joe Bloggs`

### Blogging

Pico is not blogging software - but makes it very easy for you to use it as a
blog. You can find many plugins out there implementing typical blogging
features like authentication, tagging, pagination and social plugins. See the
below Plugins section for details.

If you want to use Pico as a blogging software, you probably want to do
something like the following:
1. Put all your blog articles in a separate `blog` folder in your `content`
   directory. All these articles should have both a `Date` and `Template` meta
   header, the latter with e.g. `blog-post` as value (see Step 2).
2. Create a new Twig template called `blog-post.twig` (this must match the
   `Template` meta header from Step 1) in your theme directory. This template
   probably isn't very different from your default `index.twig`, it specifies
   how your article pages will look like.
3. Create a `blog.md` in your `content` folder and set its `Template` meta
   header to e.g. `blog`. Also create a `blog.twig` in your theme directory.
   This template will show a list of your articles, so you probably want to
   do something like this:
   ```
    {% for page in pages %}
        {% if page.id starts with "blog/" %}
            <div class="post">
                <h3><a href="{{ page.url }}">{{ page.title }}</a></h3>
                <p class="date">{{ page.date_formatted }}</p>
                <p class="excerpt">{{ page.description }}</p>
            </div>
        {% endif %}
    {% endfor %}
   ```
4. Let Pico sort pages by date by setting `$config['pages_order_by'] = 'date';`
   in your `config/config.php`. To use a descending order (newest articles
   first), also add `$config['pages_order'] = 'desc';`. The former won't affect
   pages without a `Date` meta header, but the latter does. To use ascending
   order for your page navigation again, add Twigs `reverse` filter to the
   navigation loop (`{% for page in pages|reverse %}...{% endfor %}`) in your
   themes `index.twig`.
5. Make sure to exclude the blog articles from your page navigation. You can
   achieve this by adding `{% if not page starts with "blog/" %}...{% endif %}`
   to the navigation loop.

### Themes

You can create themes for your Pico installation in the `themes` folder. Check
out the default theme for an example. Pico uses [Twig][] for template
rendering. You can select your theme by setting the `$config['theme']` option
in `config/config.php` to the name of your theme folder.

All themes must include an `index.twig` (or `index.html`) file to define the
HTML structure of the theme. Below are the Twig variables that are available
to use in your theme. Please note that paths (e.g. `{{ base_dir }}`) and URLs
(e.g. `{{ base_url }}`) don't have a trailing slash.

* `{{ config }}` - Conatins the values you set in `config/config.php`
                   (e.g. `{{ config.theme }}` becomes `default`)
* `{{ base_dir }}` - The path to your Pico root directory
* `{{ base_url }}` - The URL to your Pico site; use Twigs `link` filter to
                     specify internal links (e.g. `{{ "sub/page"|link }}`),
                     this guarantees that your link works whether URL rewriting
                     is enabled or not
* `{{ theme_dir }}` - The path to the currently active theme
* `{{ theme_url }}` - The URL to the currently active theme
* `{{ rewrite_url }}` - A boolean flag indicating enabled/disabled URL rewriting
* `{{ site_title }}` - Shortcut to the site title (see `config/config.php`)
* `{{ meta }}` - Contains the meta values from the current page
    * `{{ meta.title }}`
    * `{{ meta.description }}`
    * `{{ meta.author }}`
    * `{{ meta.date }}`
    * `{{ meta.date_formatted }}`
    * `{{ meta.time }}`
    * `{{ meta.robots }}`
    * ...
* `{{ content }}` - The content of the current page
                    (after it has been processed through Markdown)
* `{{ pages }}` - A collection of all the content pages in your site
    * `{{ page.id }}`
    * `{{ page.url }}`
    * `{{ page.title }}`
    * `{{ page.description }}`
    * `{{ page.author }}`
    * `{{ page.time }}`
    * `{{ page.date }}`
    * `{{ page.date_formatted }}`
    * `{{ page.raw_content }}`
    * `{{ page.meta }}`
* `{{ prev_page }}` - The data of the previous page (relative to `current_page`)
* `{{ current_page }}` - The data of the current page
* `{{ next_page }}` - The data of the next page (relative to `current_page`)
* `{{ is_front_page }}` - A boolean flag for the front page

Pages can be used like the following:

    <ul class="nav">
        {% for page in pages %}
            <li><a href="{{ page.url }}">{{ page.title }}</a></li>
        {% endfor %}
    </ul>

You can use different templates for different content files by specifing the
`Template` meta header. Simply add e.g. `Template: blog-post` to a content file
and Pico will use the `blog-post.twig` file in your theme folder to render
the page.

You don't have to create your own theme if Picos default theme isn't sufficient
for you, you can use one of the great themes third-party developers and
designers created in the past. As with plugins, you can find themes in
[our Wiki](https://github.com/picocms/Pico/wiki/Pico-Themes).

### Plugins

#### Plugins for users

Officially tested plugins can be found at http://pico.dev7studios.com/plugins,
but there are many awesome third-party plugins out there! A good start point
for discovery is [our Wiki](https://github.com/picocms/Pico/wiki/Pico-Plugins).

Pico makes it very easy for you to add new features to your website. Simply
upload the files of the plugin to the `plugins/` directory and you're done.
Depending on the plugin you've installed, you may have to go through some more
steps (e.g. specifing config variables), the plugin docs or `README` file will
explain what to do.

Plugins which were written to work with Pico 1.0 can be enabled and disabled
through your `config/config.php`. If you want to e.g. disable the `PicoExcerpt`
plugin, add the following line to your `config/config.php`:
`$config['PicoExcerpt.enabled'] = false;`. To force the plugin to be enabled
replace `false` with `true`.

#### Plugins for developers

You're a plugin developer? We love you guys! You can find tons of information
about how to develop plugins at http://picocms.org/plugin-dev.html. If you'd
developed a plugin for Pico 0.9 and older, you probably want to upgrade it
to the brand new plugin system introduced with Pico 1.0. Please refer to the
[Upgrade section of the docs](http://picocms.org/plugin-dev.html#upgrade).

### URL Rewriting

Picos default URLs (e.g. %base_url%/?sub/page) already are very user friendly.
Pico anyway offers you an URL rewrite feature to make URLs even more user
friendly (e.g. %base_url%/sub/page).

If you're using the Apache web server, URL rewriting probably already is
enabled - try it yourself, click on the [second URL](%base_url%/sub/page). If
you get an error message from your web server, please make sure to enable the
`mod_rewrite` module. Assumed the second URL works, but Pico still shows no
rewritten URLs, force URL rewriting by setting `$config['rewrite_url'] = true;`
in your `config/config.php`.

If you're using Nginx, you can use the following configuration to enable
URL rewriting. Don't forget to adjust the path (`/pico/`; line `1` and `4`)
to match your installation directory. You can then enable URL rewriting by
setting `$config['rewrite_url'] = true;` in your `config/config.php`.

    location /pico/ {
        index index.php;
        try_files $uri $uri/ /pico/?$uri&$args;
    }

### Config

You can override the default Pico settings (and add your own custom settings)
by editing `config/config.php` in the Pico directory. For a brief overview of
the available settings and their defaults see `config/config.php.template`. To
override a setting, copy `config/config.php.template` to `config/config.php`,
uncomment the setting and set your custom value.

### Documentation

For more help have a look at the Pico documentation at
[http://picocms.org/docs](http://picocms.org/docs)

[Twig]: http://twig.sensiolabs.org/documentation
[Markdown]: http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax