Sphinx awesome theme

This is an awesome theme and a set of extensions for the Sphinx documentation generator. Using this theme and extension, you can change the look of your documentation website and add a number of useful improvements. See the theme in action at sphinxawesome.xyz.

Getting started

You can install the awesome theme from the Python package index and modify the Sphinx configuration file conf.py.

To get started using this theme, follow these steps:

  1. Install the theme as a Python package:

    shell 
    pip install sphinxawesome-theme

    See How to install the theme for more information.

  2. Add the html_theme configuration option to the Sphinx configuration file conf.py:

    python 
    html_theme = "sphinxawesome_theme"

    See How to use the theme for more information.

Features

This theme is designed with readability and usability in mind. The theme includes several extensions that enhance the usability:

  • Awesome code blocks

    • Code blocks have a header section, displaying the optional caption, as well as the programming language used for syntax highlighting

    • The code block headers contain a Copy button, allowing you to copy code snippets to the clipboard.

    • The theme adds two new options to Sphinx’s code-block directive: emphasize-added and emphasize-removed, for highlighting changes within other highlighted code.

  • Awesome new directive for highlighting placeholder variables. The theme supports a new directive samp, which is the equivalent of the built-in :samp: interpreted text role. This allows you to highlight placeholder variables in code blocks.

  • Awesome user experience improvements. These small features make the theme more usable:

    • Better keyboard navigation:

      • Use the Tab key to navigate through all sections on the page

      • Use the Skip to Content link to bypass the navigation links

      • Use the / key (forward Slash) to start a search

    • Better “permalink” mechanism:

      • Hovering over an element with a permalink reveals a Link icon

      • Selecting the Link icon copies the link to the clipboard

      • Notes, warnings and other admonitions have permalinks by default

    • Collapsible elements:

      • Nested navigation links—all pages are reachable from all other pages

      • Code definitions—code object definitions (functions, classes, modules, etc.), for example, obtained via the sphinx.ext.autodoc extension.

These pages are divided into a how-to and a demo section. In the how-to section, you can learn:

The demo section acts as a style reference. If you can’t find a markup element in the demo section, it’s likely that styles for it don’t exist yet. Create an issue on GitHub if you need styles for a certain markup element, or add your own custom CSS.

The Sphinx awesome theme is open source software and distributed under the MIT license. The source code is available on GitHub.