Zensical UI

Templates for Zensical.

[!NOTE]

Note that this library is still in early development and its API may change significantly in future releases. This repository contains the UI templates for Zensical as a first step towards modularization.

Python package

The zensical-ui distribution provides the built templates, browser assets, and icons as a platform-independent Python package. It requires Python 3.11 or newer and has no runtime dependencies.

from zensical_ui import get_theme_dir

# Absolute path to the built templates and assets, including .icons.
theme_dir = get_theme_dir()

Build distributions

Build the UI with Node.js 24 or newer, then package the resulting dist/ tree:

npm ci
npm run build
python -m pip install build
python -m build --outdir artifacts

The package version comes from package.json. The wheel and source distribution include the built assets; installing them does not require Node.js or access to this repository. The source distribution also includes the UI sources and build tools.

Develop locally

Create or activate the Python environment that will run Zensical, then install this checkout as an editable dependency:

npm ci
npm run build
python -m pip install --editable .
npm start

get_theme_dir() resolves to this checkout's dist/ directory for an editable installation. Changes written by the UI watcher are visible without reinstalling this package or copying files into the core repository. The core's exact UI version requirement must match the version in this checkout's package.json.