Is Insider the only way to get different social cards / blog post?

[johnsturgeon]

I'm interested in customizing the icon for different blog posts, and I was wondering if there was a way to accomplish this without Insider.

[kamilkrzyskow]

Hello @johnsturgeon,
it depends on what are you after specifically. If you're asking about configuring the social cards layouts on the community version, then it's impossible, as the layouts were introduced in the Insiders version, so there is no easy straight-forward configuration for this.

mkdocs-material/material/plugins/social/config.py

Lines 28 to 36 in 36e5263

	# Social plugin configuration
	class SocialConfig(Config):
	enabled = Type(bool, default = True)
	cache_dir = Type(str, default = ".cache/plugin/social")
	# Settings for social cards
	cards = Type(bool, default = True)
	cards_dir = Type(str, default = "assets/images/social")
	cards_layout_options = Type(dict, default = {})

However, since both MkDocs and the plugin are written in Python, everything is public, and you can monkey-patch functions with a hook or inside the CI before deployment you could inject other code into the plugin script file to change the behaviour.

Only caveat of this is that the fancy multi-layer code was also introduced in Insiders, so depending on how much control you want over the positioning of the elements etc. you'd have to add a lot of the code. If you only want to change the logo on a certain social card then I guess monkey-patching the self._resized_logo_promise.result() call between pages or redefining the _render_card function would suffice.

EDIT: The first proposed idea will likely not work as the _render_card function runs concurrently, so depending on the race condition the wrong logo could be used on a given social card. So _render_card redefinition is likely the better way.

EDIT2:
Apart of that you could patch the on_page_markdown directly, but be aware that you can't just patch it the "normal" way over the class reference, as during config load, each event function is registered inside MkDocs, so you have to modify that reference.

mkdocs-material/material/plugins/social/plugin.py

Lines 250 to 281 in 36e5263

	# Render social card
	def _render_card(self, site_name, title, description):
	# Render background and logo
	image = self._render_card_background((1200, 630), self.color["fill"])
	image.alpha_composite(
	self._resized_logo_promise.result(),
	(1200 - 228, 64 - 4)
	)
	# Render site name
	font = self._get_font("Bold", 36)
	image.alpha_composite(
	self._render_text((826, 48), font, site_name, 1, 20),
	(64 + 4, 64)
	)
	# Render page title
	font = self._get_font("Bold", 92)
	image.alpha_composite(
	self._render_text((826, 328), font, title, 3, 30),
	(64, 160)
	)
	# Render page description
	font = self._get_font("Regular", 28)
	image.alpha_composite(
	self._render_text((826, 80), font, description, 2, 14),
	(64 + 4, 512)
	)
	# Return social card image
	return image

[johnsturgeon]

Thanks for the info!