Static Sites with Sphinx and Markdown Course

What's this course about and how is it different?

Everybody knows Sphinx for documenting projects, Python and otherwise. But few think of Sphinx for the rest of a website.

Why? Because Sphinx traditionally means authoring with reStructuredText instead of Markdown. While RST is very powerful, it's a bit quirky, and nowhere near the popularity of Markdown.

But with the arrival of full Markdown support MyST, and with static site generators having a renaissance, it's time to give Sphinx a second look. Sphinx is an "information-rich" static site generator, with rich linking and many other features for authoring a knowledge base.

This course introduces Sphinx for websites, shows enabling MyST for Markdown, and compares what it has to offer versus other approaches.

In this course, you will:

• Get a website started, powered by Sphinx, but with MyST to allow authoring in Markdown
• Use simple, normal Markdown syntax for your basic authoring needs
• See how to tap into the deeper power of Sphinx via Markdown: linking, code examples, and structure
• And lots more

View the full course outline.

Who is this course for?

Anyone who knows a little Markdown and can execute Python code to generate powerful and flexible static web sites and documentation.

What will we build?

Above you see the static site we'll be building during this course. Feel free to visit our hosted version and explore it.

Follow along with subtitles and transcripts

Each course comes with subtitles and full transcripts. The transcripts are available as a separate searchable page for each lecture. They also are available in course-wide search results to help you find just the right lecture.

Who am I? Why should you take my course?

Hi there! I'm Paul Everitt, Python and Web developer advocate at JetBrains. I've been involved with Python since 1993.

You can find me speaking at Python conferences, hosting webcasts on JetBrains' YouTube chanel, blogging, and supporting the developer community.

Free office hours keep you from getting stuck

One of the challenges of self-paced online learning is getting stuck. It can be hard to get the help you need to get unstuck.

That's why at Talk Python Training, we offer live, online office hours. You drop in and join a group of fellow students to chat about your course progress and see solutions via screen sharing.

Just visit your account page to see the upcoming office hour schedule.

Is this course based on Python 3 or Python 2?

This course is based upon Python 3. Python 2 is officially unsupported as of January 1st, 2020 and we believe that it would be ill-advised to teach or learn Python 2. This course is, and has always been, built around Python 3.

This course is delivered in very high resolution

This course is delivered in 1440p (4x the pixels as 720p). When you're watching the videos for this course, it will feel like you're sitting next to the instructor looking at their screen.

Every little detail, menu item, and icon is clear and crisp. Watch the introductory video at the top of this page to see an example.

The time to act is now

Use Markdown and Sphinx to build your next web project.