Basically Basic is a Jekyll theme meant as a substitute for the default Minima, with a few enhancements thrown in for good measure:
- Clean responsive design with six customizable skins
- Curriculum Vitæ/Resume layout powered by JSON data
- About page layout
- Site-wide search provided by Algolia or Lunr.
- Disqus Comments and Google Analytics support
- SEO best practices via Jekyll SEO Tag
If you're running Jekyll v3.5+ and self-hosting you can quickly install the theme as a Ruby gem. If you're hosting with GitHub Pages you can install as a remote theme or directly copy all of the theme files (see structure below) into your project.
-
Add this line to your Jekyll site's
Gemfile
:gem "jekyll-theme-basically-basic"
-
Add this line to your Jekyll site's
_config.yml
file:theme: jekyll-theme-basically-basic
-
Then run Bundler to install the theme gem and dependencies:
bundle install
GitHub Pages has added full support for any GitHub-hosted theme.
-
Replace
gem "jekyll"
with:gem "github-pages", group: :jekyll_plugins
-
Run
bundle update
and verify that all gems install properly. -
Add
remote_theme: "mmistakes/jekyll-theme-basically-basic@1.4.5"
to your_config.yml
file. Remove any othertheme:
orremote_theme:
entries.
Note: Your Jekyll site should be viewable immediately at http://USERNAME.github.io. If it's not, you can force a rebuild by Customizing Your Site (see below for more details).
If you're hosting several Jekyll based sites under the same GitHub username you
will have to use Project Pages instead of User Pages. Essentially you rename the
repo to something other than USERNAME.github.io and create a gh-pages
branch off of master
. For more details on how to set things up check
GitHub's documentation.
If you forked or downloaded the jekyll-theme-basically-basic
repo you can
safely remove the following files and folders:
.editorconfig
.gitattributes
.github
.scss-lint.yml
CHANGELOG.md
jekyll-theme-basically-basic.gemspec
LICENSE
Rakefile
README.md
screenshot.png
/docs
/example
If you're using the Ruby Gem or remote theme versions of Basically Basic, upgrading is fairly painless.
To check which version you are currently using, view the source of your built site and you should something similar to:
<!--
Basically Basic Jekyll Theme 1.4.5
Copyright 2017-2018 Michael Rose - mademistakes.com | @mmistakes
Free for personal and commercial use under the MIT license
https://github.com/mmistakes/jekyll-basically-theme/blob/master/LICENSE
-->
At the top of every .html
file, /assets/css/main.css
, and /assets/js/main.js
.
Simply run bundle update
if you're using Bundler (have a Gemfile
) or gem update jekyll-theme-basically-basic
if you're not.
Verify you have the latest version assigned in _config.yml
remote_theme: "mmistakes/jekyll-theme-basically-basic@1.4.5"
Note: If @x.x.x
is omitted the theme's current master
branch will be used. It is advised to "lock" remote_theme
at a specific version to avoid introducing breaking changes to your site.
The next step requires rebuilding your GitHub Pages site so it can pull down the latest theme updates. This can be achieved by pushing up a commit to your GitHub repo.
An empty commit will get the job done too if you don't have anything to push at the moment:
git commit --allow-empty -m "Force rebuild of site"
If you want to get the most out of the Jekyll + GitHub Pages workflow, then you'll need to utilize Git. To pull down theme updates you must first ensure there's an upstream remote. If you forked the theme's repo then you're likely good to go.
To double check, run git remote -v
and verify that you can fetch from origin https://github.com/mmistakes/jekyll-theme-basically-basic.git
.
To add it you can do the following:
git remote add upstream https://github.com/mmistakes/jekyll-theme-basically-basic.git
Now you can pull any commits made to theme's master
branch with:
git pull upstream master
Depending on the amount of customizations you've made after forking, there's likely to be merge conflicts. Work through any conflicting files Git flags, staging the changes you wish to keep, and then commit them.
Another way of dealing with updates is downloading the theme --- replacing your layouts, includes, and assets with the newer ones manually. To be sure that you don't miss any changes it's probably a good idea to review the theme's commit history to see what's changed since.
Here's a quick checklist of the important folders/files you'll want to be mindful of:
Name | |
---|---|
_layouts |
Replace all. Apply edits if you customized any layouts. |
_includes |
Replace all. Apply edits if you customized any includes. |
assets |
Replace all. Apply edits if you customized stylesheets or scripts. |
_sass |
Replace all. Apply edits if you customized Sass partials. |
_data/theme.yml |
Safe to keep. Verify that there were no major structural changes or additions. |
_config.yml |
Safe to keep. Verify that there were no major structural changes or additions. |
Note: If you're not seeing the latest version, be sure to flush browser and
CDN caches. Depending on your hosting environment older versions of
/assets/css/main.css
, /assets/js/main.js
, or *.html
may be cached.
Layouts, includes, Sass partials, and data files are all placed in their default
locations. Stylesheets and scripts in assets
, and a few development related
files in the project's root directory.
Please note: If you installed Basically Basic via the Ruby Gem method, theme
files found in /_layouts
, /_includes
, /_sass
, and /assets
will be
missing. This is normal as they are bundled with the jekyll-theme-basically-basic
gem.
jekyll-theme-basically-basic
├── _data # data files
| └── theme.yml # theme settings and custom text
├── _includes # theme includes and SVG icons
├── _layouts # theme layouts (see below for details)
├── _sass # Sass partials
├── assets
| ├── javascripts
| | └── main.js
| └── stylesheets
| └── main.scss
├── _config.yml # sample configuration
└── index.md # sample home page (all posts/not paginated)
After creating a Gemfile
and installing the theme you'll need to add and edit
the following files:
Note: Consult the pagination documentation below for instructions on how to enable it for the home page.
Using the jekyll new
command will get you up and running the quickest.
Edit _config.yml
and create _data/theme.yml
as instructed above and you're
good to go.
Configuration of site-wide elements (lang
, title
, description
, logo
,
author
, etc.) happens in your project's _config.yml
. See the
example configuration in this repo for additional
reference.
Description | |
---|---|
lang |
Used to indicate the language of text (e.g., en-US, en-GB, fr) |
title |
Your site's title (e.g., Dungan's Awesome Site) |
description |
Short site description (e.g., A blog about grasshopper mash) |
url |
The full URL to your site (e.g., https://groverloaf.org) |
author |
Global author information (see below) |
logo |
Path to a site-wide logo ~100x100px (e.g., /assets/your-company-logo.png) |
twitter_username |
Site-wide Twitter username, used as a link in sidebar |
github_username |
Site-wide GitHub username, used as a link in sidebar |
For more configuration options be sure to consult the documentation for: jekyll-seo-tag, jekyll-feed, jekyll-paginate, and jekyll-sitemap.
This theme comes in six different skins (color variations). To change skins add
one of the following to your /_data/theme.yml
file:
skin: default |
skin: night |
skin: plum |
---|---|---|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
skin: sea |
skin: soft |
skin: steel |
---|---|---|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
This theme allows you to easily use Google Fonts
throughout the theme. Simply add the following to your
/_data/theme.yml
, replacing the font name
and weights
accordingly.
google_fonts:
- name: "Fira Sans"
weights: "400,400i,600,600i"
- name: "Fira Sans Condensed"
To change text found throughout the theme add the following to your
/_data/theme.yml
file and customize as necessary.
t:
skip_links: "Skip links"
skip_primary_nav: "Skip to primary navigation"
skip_content: "Skip to content"
skip_footer: "Skip to footer"
menu: "Menu"
search: "Search"
site_search: "Site Search"
results_found: "Result(s) found"
search_placeholder_text: "Enter your search term..."
home: "Home"
newer: "Newer"
older: "Older"
email: "Email"
subscribe: "Subscribe"
read_more: "Read More"
posts: "Posts"
page: "Page"
of: "of"
min_read: "min read"
present: "Present"
cv_awards: "Awards"
cv_summary_contact: "Contact"
cv_summary_contact_email: "Email"
cv_summary_contact_phone: "Phone"
cv_summary_contact_website: "Website"
cv_location: "Location"
cv_education: "Education"
cv_education_courses: "Courses"
cv_interests: "Interests"
cv_languages: "Languages"
cv_publications: "Publications"
cv_references: "References"
cv_skills: "Skills"
cv_volunteer: "Volunteer"
cv_work: "Work"
By default all internal pages with a title
will be added to the "off-canvas"
menu. For more granular control and sorting of these menu links:
-
Create a custom list to override the default setting by adding a
navigation_pages
array to your/_data/theme.yml
file. -
Add raw page paths in the order you'd like:
navigation_pages: - about.md - cv.md
Each menu link's title and URL will be populated based on their title
and
permalink
respectively.
Break up the main listing of posts into smaller lists and display them over multiple pages by enabling pagination.
-
Include the
jekyll-paginate
plugin in yourGemfile
.group :jekyll_plugins do gem "jekyll-paginate" end
-
Add
jekyll-paginate
togems
array in your_config.yml
file and the following pagination settings:paginate: 5 # amount of posts to show per page paginate_path: /page:num/
-
Create
index.html
(or renameindex.md
) in the root of your project and add the following front matter:layout: home paginate: true
To enable site-wide search add search: true
to your _config.yml
.
The default search uses Lunr to build a search index of all your documents. This method is 100% compatible with sites hosted on GitHub Pages.
Note: Only the first 50 words of a post or page's body content is added to the Lunr search index. Setting search_full_content
to true
in your _config.yml
will override this and could impact page load performance.
For faster and more relevant search (see demo):
-
Add the
jekyll-algolia
gem to yourGemfile
, in the:jekyll_plugins
section.group :jekyll_plugins do gem "jekyll-feed" gem "jekyll-seo-tag" gem "jekyll-sitemap" gem "jekyll-paginate" gem "jekyll-algolia" end
Once this is done, download all dependencies by running
bundle install
. -
Switch search providers from
lunr
toalgolia
in your_config.yml
file:search_provider: algolia
-
Add the following Algolia credentials to your
_config.yml
file. If you don't have an Algolia account, you can open a free Community plan. Once signed in, you can grab your credentials from your dashboard.algolia: application_id: # YOUR_APPLICATION_ID index_name: # YOUR_INDEX_NAME search_only_api_key: # YOUR_SEARCH_ONLY_API_KEY powered_by: # true (default), false
-
Once your credentials are setup, you can run the indexing with the following command:
ALGOLIA_API_KEY=your_admin_api_key bundle exec jekyll algolia
For Windows users you will have to use
set
to assigned theALGOLIA_API_KEY
environment variable.set ALGOLIA_API_KEY=your_admin_api_key bundle exec jekyll algolia
Note that
ALGOLIA_API_KEY
should be set to your admin API key.
To use the Algolia search with GitHub Pages hosted sites follow this deployment guide. Or this guide for deploying on Netlify.
Note: The Jekyll Algolia plugin can be configured in several ways. Be sure to check out their full documentation on how to exclude files and other valuable settings.
Author information is used as meta data for post "by lines" and propagates the
creator
field of Twitter summary cards with the following front matter in
_config.yml
:
author:
name: John Doe
twitter: johndoetwitter
picture: /assets/images/johndoe.png
Site-wide author information can be overridden in a document's front matter in the same way:
author:
name: Jane Doe
twitter: janedoetwitter
picture: /assets/images/janedoe.png
Or by specifying a corresponding key in the document's front matter, that
exists in site.data.authors
. E.g., you have the following in the document's
front matter:
author: megaman
And you have the following in _data/authors.yml
:
megaman:
name: Mega Man
twitter: megamantwitter
picture: /assets/images/megaman.png
drlight:
name: Dr. Light
twitter: drlighttwitter
picture: /assets/images/drlight.png
Currently author.picture
is only used in layout: about
. Recommended size is
300 x 300
pixels.
To enable reading time counts add read_time: true
to a post or page's YAML
Front Matter.
Optionally, if you have a Disqus account, you can show a comments section below each post.
To enable Disqus comments, add your Disqus shortname to your project's
_config.yml
file:
disqus:
shortname: my_disqus_shortname
Comments are enabled by default and will only appear in production when built
with the following environment value:
JEKYLL_ENV=production
If you don't want to display comments for a particular post you can disable
them by adding comments: false
to that post's front matter.
To enable Google Analytics, add your tracking ID
to _config.yml
like so:
google_analytics: UA-NNNNNNNN-N
Similar to comments, the Google Analytics tracking script will only appear in
production when using the following environment value: JEKYLL_ENV=production
.
By default the copyright line in the footer displays the current year
(at build time) followed by your site's title. e.g. © 2018 Basically Basic.
If you would like to change this add copyright
to your _config.yml
file
with appropriate text:
copyright: "My custom copyright."
This theme provides the following layouts, which you can use by setting the
layout
Front Matter on each page,
like so:
---
layout: name
---
This layout handles all of the basic page scaffolding placing the page content
between the masthead and footer elements. All other layouts inherit this one
and provide additional styling and features inside of the {{ content }}
block.
This layout accommodates the following front matter:
# optional alternate title to replace page.title at the top of the page
alt_title: "Basically Basic"
# optional sub-title below the page title
sub_title: "The name says it all"
# optional intro text below titles, Markdown allowed
introduction: |
Basically Basic is a Jekyll theme meant to be a substitute for the default --- [Minima](https://github.com/jekyll/minima). Conventions and features found in Minima are fully supported by **Basically Basic**.
# optional call to action links
actions:
- label: "Learn More"
icon: github # references name of svg icon, see full list below
url: "http://url-goes-here.com"
- label: "Download"
icon: download # references name of svg icon, see full list below
url: "http://url-goes-here.com"
image: # URL to a hero image associated with the post (e.g., /assets/page-pic.jpg)
# post specific author data if different from what is set in _config.yml
author:
name: John Doe
twitter: johndoetwitter
comments: false # disable comments on this post
Note: Hero images can be overlaid with a transparent "accent" color to unify them with the theme's palette. To enable, customize the CSS with the following Sass variable override:
$intro-image-color-overlay: true;
Visually this layout looks and acts the same as layout: post
, with two minor
differences.
- Author "by line" and publish date are omitted.
- Disqus comments are omitted.
This layout accommodates the same front matter as layout: page
, with the
addition of the following:
paginate: true # enables pagination loop, see section above for additional setup
entries_layout: # list (default), grid
By default, posts are shown in a list view. To change to a grid view add entries_layout: grid
to the page's front matter.
This layout displays all posts grouped by the year they were published. It accommodates the same front matter as layout: page
.
By default, posts are shown in a list view. To change to a grid view add entries_layout: grid
to the page's front matter.
This layout displays all posts grouped category. It accommodates the same front matter as layout: page
.
By default, posts are shown in a list view. To change to a grid view add entries_layout: grid
to the page's front matter.
This layout displays all posts grouped by tag. It accommodates the same front matter as layout: page
.
By default, posts are shown in a list view. To change to a grid view add entries_layout: grid
to the page's front matter.
This layout displays all documents grouped by a specific collection. It accommodates the same front matter as layout: page
with the addition of the following:
collection: # collection name
entries_layout: # list (default), grid
show_excerpts: # true (default), false
sort_by: # date (default) title
sort_order: # forward (default), reverse
To create a page showing all documents in the recipes
collection you'd create recipes.md
in the root of your project and add this front matter:
title: Recipes
layout: collection
permalink: /recipes/
collection: recipes
By default, documents are shown in a list view. To change to a grid view add entries_layout: grid
to the page's front matter. If you want to sort the collection by title add sort_by: title
. If you want reverse sorting, add sort_order: reverse
.
This layout displays all posts grouped by a specific category. It accommodates the same front matter as layout: page
with the addition of the following:
taxonomy: # category name
entries_layout: # list (default), grid
By default, posts are shown in a list view. To change to a grid view add entries_layout: grid
to the page's front matter.
To create a page showing all posts assigned to the category foo
you'd create foo.md
in the root of your project and add this front matter:
title: Foo
layout: category
permalink: /categories/foo/
taxonomy: foo
This layout displays all posts grouped by a specific tag. It accommodates the same front matter as layout: page
with the addition of the following:
taxonomy: # tag name
entries_layout: # list (default), grid
By default, posts are shown in a list view. To change to a grid view add entries_layout: grid
to the page's front matter.
To create a page showing all posts assigned to the tag foo bar
you'd create foo-bar.md
in the root of your project and add this front matter:
title: Foo Bar
layout: tag
permalink: /tags/foo-bar/
taxonomy: foo bar
This layout accommodates the same front matter as layout: page
, with the
addition of the following to display an author picture:
author:
name: John Doe
picture: /assets/images/johndoe.png
Recommended picture
size is approximately 300 x 300
pixels. If author
object is not explicitly set in the about page's front matter the theme
will default to the value set in _config.yml
.
If blank there no image will appear.
This layout accommodates the same front matter as layout: page
. It
leverages a JSON-based file standard for
resume data to conveniently render a curriculum vitæ or resume painlessly.
Simply use JSON Resume's in-browser resume builder
to export a JSON file and save to your project as _data/cv.json
.
Suggested image sizes in pixels are as follows:
Image | Description | Size |
---|---|---|
page.image.path |
Large full-width document image. | Tall images will push content down the page. 1600 x 600 is a good middle-ground size to aim for. |
page.image |
Short-hand for page.image.path when used alone (without thumbnail , caption , or other variables). |
Same as page.image.path |
page.image.thumbnail |
Small document image used in grid view. | 400 x 200 |
author.picture |
Author page image. | 300 x 300 |
The default structure, style, and scripts of this theme can be overridden and customized in the following two ways.
Theme defaults can be overridden
by placing a file with the same name into your project's _includes
or
_layouts
directory. For instance:
- To specify a custom style path or meta data to the
_includes/head.html
file, create an_includes
directory in your project, copy_includes/head.html
from Basically Basic's gem folder to<your_project>/_includes
and start editing that file.
ProTip: to locate the theme's files on your computer run
bundle info jekyll-theme-basically-basic
. This returns the location of the
gem-based theme files.
To override the default Sass (located in theme's
_sass
directory), do one of the following:
-
Copy directly from the Basically Basic gem
- Go to your local Basically Basic gem installation directory (run
bundle info jekyll-theme-basically-basic
to get the path to it). - Copy the contents of
/assets/stylesheets/main.scss
from there to<your_project>
. - Customize what you want inside
<your_project>/assets/stylesheets/main.scss
.
- Go to your local Basically Basic gem installation directory (run
-
Copy from this repo.
- Copy the contents of assets/stylesheets/main.scss
to
<your_project>
. - Customize what you want inside
<your_project/assets/stylesheets/main.scss
.
- Copy the contents of assets/stylesheets/main.scss
to
Note: To make more extensive changes and customize the Sass partials bundled
in the gem. You will need to copy the complete contents of the _sass
directory
to <your_project>
due to the way Jekyll currently reads those files.
To make basic tweaks to theme's style Sass variables can be overridden by adding
to <your_project>/assets/stylesheets/main.scss
. For instance, to change the
accent color used throughout the theme add the following:
$accent-color: red;
To override the default JavaScript bundled in the theme, do one of the following:
-
Copy directly from the Basically Basic gem
- Go to your local Basically Basic gem installation directory (run
bundle info jekyll-theme-basically-basic
to get the path to it). - Copy the contents of
/assets/javascripts/main.js
from there to<your_project>
. - Customize what you want inside
<your_project>/assets/javascripts/main.js
.
- Go to your local Basically Basic gem installation directory (run
-
Copy from this repo.
- Copy the contents of assets/javascripts/main.js
to
<your_project>
. - Customize what you want inside
<your_project>/assets/javascripts/main.js
.
- Copy the contents of assets/javascripts/main.js
to
The theme uses social network logos and other iconography saved as SVGs for
performance and flexibility. Said SVGs are located in the _includes
directory
and prefixed with icon-
. Each icon has been sized and designed to fit a
16 x 16
viewbox and optimized with SVGO.
Fill colors are defined in the _sass/basically-basic/_icons.scss
partial and
set with .icon-name
where class name matches the corresponding icon.
For example the Twitter icon is given a fill color of #1da1f2
like so:
<span class="icon icon--twitter">{% include icon-twitter.svg %}</span>
Alongside the SVG assets, there are icon helper includes to aid in generating social network links.
Include Parameter | Description | Required |
---|---|---|
username |
Username on given social network | Required |
label |
Text used for hyperlink | Optional, defaults to username |
For example, the following icon-github.html
include:
{% include icon-github.html username=jekyll label='GitHub' %}
Will output the following HTML:
<a href="https://github.com/jekyll">
<span class="icon icon--github"><svg viewBox="0 0 16 16" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" fill-rule="evenodd" clip-rule="evenodd" stroke-linejoin="round" stroke-miterlimit="1.414"><path d="M8 0C3.58 0 0 3.582 0 8c0 3.535 2.292 6.533 5.47 7.59.4.075.547-.172.547-.385 0-.19-.007-.693-.01-1.36-2.226.483-2.695-1.073-2.695-1.073-.364-.924-.89-1.17-.89-1.17-.725-.496.056-.486.056-.486.803.056 1.225.824 1.225.824.714 1.223 1.873.87 2.33.665.072-.517.278-.87.507-1.07-1.777-.2-3.644-.888-3.644-3.953 0-.873.31-1.587.823-2.147-.09-.202-.36-1.015.07-2.117 0 0 .67-.215 2.2.82.64-.178 1.32-.266 2-.27.68.004 1.36.092 2 .27 1.52-1.035 2.19-.82 2.19-.82.43 1.102.16 1.915.08 2.117.51.56.82 1.274.82 2.147 0 3.073-1.87 3.75-3.65 3.947.28.24.54.73.54 1.48 0 1.07-.01 1.93-.01 2.19 0 .21.14.46.55.38C13.71 14.53 16 11.53 16 8c0-4.418-3.582-8-8-8"></path></svg></span>
<span class="label">GitHub</span>
</a>
To set up your environment to develop this theme:
- Clone this repo
cd
into/example
and runbundle install
.
To test the theme the locally as you make changes to it:
cd
into the root folder of the repo (e.g.jekyll-theme-basically-basic
).- Run
bundle exec rake preview
and open your browser tohttp://localhost:4000/example/
.
This starts a Jekyll server using the theme's files and contents of the
example/
directory. As modifications are made, refresh your browser to see
any changes.
Found a typo in the documentation? Interested in adding a feature or fixing a bug? Then by all means submit an issue or take a stab at submitting a pull request. If this is your first pull request, it may be helpful to read up on the GitHub Flow.
When submitting a pull request:
- Clone the repo.
- Create a branch off of
master
and give it a meaningful name (e.g.my-awesome-new-feature
) and describe the feature or fix. - Open a pull request on GitHub.
Sample pages can be found in the /docs
and /example
folders if you'd like to tackle any "low-hanging fruit" like fixing typos, bad
grammar, etc.
Michael Rose
The MIT License (MIT)
Copyright (c) 2017-2021 Michael Rose and contributors
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
Basically Basic incorporates icons from The Noun Project. Icons are distributed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States (CC BY 3.0 US).
Basically Basic incorporates photographs from Unsplash.
Basically Basic incorporates Susy, Copyright (c) 2017, Miriam Eric Suzanne. Susy is distributed under the terms of the BSD 3-clause "New" or "Revised" License.
Basically Basic incorporates Breakpoint. Breakpoint is distributed under the terms of the MIT/GPL Licenses.