Unrecognised theme name: 'cinder' when installed via pip

[brunswick42]

I'm new to mkdocs, so maybe the problem is obvious, but has the name of the theme changed? I created a virtual environment to test the mkdocs-cinder package.
I installed it with pip install mkdocs-cinder and created a new mkdocs project with mkdocs new. My mkdocs.yml file is as simple as it gets

site_name: My Docs
theme: cinder

but when build the project I get the error

ERROR   -  Config value: 'theme'. Error: Unrecognised theme name: 'cinder'. The available installed themes are: mkdocs, readthedocs 

Aborted with 1 Configuration Errors!

pip list shows that the package is installed

Package       Version
------------- -------
mkdocs-cinder 1.0.4

but it can't find the theme for some reason.

[chrissimpkins]

Sorry for the troubles! I believe that the pip installation approach broke around the time that mkdocs released v1.0.0. I haven't had the time (or quite frankly the interest) to keep up with the changes. There was a good deal that broke in the custom theme with that release. The docs are ~ here: https://www.mkdocs.org/user-guide/custom-themes/#distributing-themes. I'd gladly take a PR to fix this if you are able to figure out what changed and how we need to respond!

[brunswick42]

Hey, no problem, the issue seems to largely be on my end due to my lack of mkdocs knowledge. I came across this issue for the mkdocs-material theme. Like them, I installed mkdocs with apt-get, and it seems that they use different theme_dir values which prevents it from finding the pip installed theme. Removing the existing mkdocs install and installing via pip solved the problem.

[chrissimpkins]

Hey, no problem, the issue seems to largely be on my end due to my lack of mkdocs knowledge. I came across this issue for the mkdocs-material theme. Like them, I installed mkdocs with apt-get, and it seems that they use different theme_dir values which prevents it from finding the pip installed theme. Removing the existing mkdocs install and installing via pip solved the problem.

Tyvm! I wasn't aware that mkdocs was available through apt. This worth a FAQ comment in our docs?

[brunswick42]

It might be a good idea to at least note that the apt-get package causes problems with the pip theme installation.

I'll try to find some time to investigate the cause later on. I removed the apt package and installed mkdocs with pip, which resolved my problem, but I didn't try to confirm why the apt/pip mkdocs behave differently. I assume the cause is similar to the issue I linked to, some variable with a different value, but since theme_dir is depreciated it might be a problem with custom_dir or another variable.