Minima is a one-size-fits-all Jekyll theme for writers. It's Jekyll's default (and first) theme. It's what you get when you run jekyll new
.
Disclaimer: The information here may vary depending on the version you're using. Please refer to the README.md
bundled
within the theme-gem for information specific to your version or by pointing your browser to the Git tag corresponding to your
version. e.g. https://github.com/jekyll/minima/blob/v2.5.0/README.md
Running bundle show minima
will provide you with the local path to your current theme version.
Add this line to your Jekyll site's Gemfile:
gem "minima"
And then execute:
$ bundle
Minima has been scaffolded by the jekyll new-theme
command and therefore has all the necessary files and directories to have a new Jekyll site up and running with zero-configuration.
Refers to files within the _layouts
directory, that define the markup for your theme.
default.html
— The base layout that lays the foundation for subsequent layouts. The derived layouts inject their contents into this file at the line that says{{ content }}
and are linked to this file via FrontMatter declarationlayout: default
.home.html
— The layout for your landing-page / home-page / index-page. [More Info.]page.html
— The layout for your documents that contain FrontMatter, but are not posts.post.html
— The layout for your posts.
home.html
is a flexible HTML layout for the site's landing-page / home-page / index-page.
From Minima v2.2 onwards, the home layout will inject all content from your index.md
/ index.html
before the Posts
heading. This will allow you to include non-posts related content to be published on the landing page under a dedicated heading. We recommended that you title this section with a Heading2 (##
).
Usually the site.title
itself would suffice as the implicit 'main-title' for a landing-page. But, if your landing-page would like a heading to be explicitly displayed, then simply define a title
variable in the document's front matter and it will be rendered with an <h1>
tag.
This section is optional from Minima v2.2 onwards.
It will be automatically included only when your site contains one or more valid posts or drafts (if the site is configured to show_drafts
).
The title for this section is Posts
by default and rendered with an <h2>
tag. You can customize this heading by defining a list_title
variable in the document's front matter.
Refers to snippets of code within the _includes
directory that can be inserted in multiple layouts (and another include-file as well) within the same theme-gem.
disqus_comments.html
— Code to markup disqus comment box.footer.html
— Defines the site's footer section.google-analytics.html
— Inserts Google Analytics module (active only in production environment).head.html
— Code-block that defines the<head></head>
in default layout.custom-head.html
— Placeholder to allow users to add more metadata to<head />
.header.html
— Defines the site's main header section. By default, pages with a definedtitle
attribute will have links displayed here.social.html
— Renders social-media icons based on theminima:social_links
data in the config file.
Refers to .scss
files within the _sass
directory that define the theme's styles.
minima-classic.scss
— The core file imported by preprocessedcss/style.scss
, it defines the variable defaults for the "classic" skin of the theme.minima/initialize.scss
— A component that defines the theme's skin-agnostic variable defaults and sass partials.minima/custom-variables.scss
— A hook that allows overriding variable defaults and mixins. (Note: Cannot override styles)minima/custom-styles.scss
— A hook that allows overriding styles. (Note: Cannot override variables)minima/_base.scss
— Sass partial for resets and defines base styles for various HTML elements.minima/_layout.scss
— Sass partial that defines the visual style for various layouts.
Refer the skins section for more details.
Refers to various asset files within the assets
directory.
Contains the css/style.scss
that imports sass files from within the _sass
directory. This css/style.scss
is what gets processed into the theme's main stylesheet main.css
called by _layouts/default.html
via _includes/head.html
.
This directory can include sub-directories to manage assets of similar type (img
, fonts
, svg
), and will be copied over as is, to the final transformed site directory.
Minima comes with jekyll-seo-tag
plugin preinstalled to make sure your website gets the most useful meta tags. See usage to know how to set it up.
Have the following line in your config file:
theme: minima
To override the default structure and style of minima, simply create the concerned directory at the root of your site, copy the file you wish to customize to that directory, and then edit the file.
e.g., to override the _includes/head.html
file to specify a custom style path, create an _includes
directory, copy _includes/head.html
from minima gem folder to <yoursite>/_includes
and start editing that file.
The site's default CSS has now moved to a new place within the gem itself, assets/css/style.scss
.
In Minima 3.0, if you only need to customize the colors of the theme, refer to the subsequent section on skins. To have your
CSS overrides in sync with upstream changes released in future versions, you can collect all your overrides for the Sass
variables and mixins inside a sass file placed at _sass/minima/custom-variables.scss
and all other overrides inside a sass file
placed at path _sass/minima/custom.scss
.
You need not maintain entire partial(s) at the site's source just to override a few styles.
Minima 3.0 supports defining and switching between multiple color-palettes (or skins).
.
├── minima.scss
└── minima
└── _syntax-highlighting.scss
A skin is a Sass file named in the format minima-*
and is the core file imported by the assets/css/style.scss
. It defines the
variable defaults related to the "color" aspect of the theme and imports two components:
minima/initialize.scss
— Defines the theme's skin-agnostic variable defaults and sass partials for styles.minima/custom-styles.scss
— A hook for overriding the predefined styles. (Note: Cannot override variables)
A skin also embeds the Sass rules related to syntax-highlighting since that is primarily related to color and has to be adjusted in harmony with the current skin.
The default color palette for Minima is defined within _sass/minima-classic.scss
. To switch to another available skin, simply
declare it in the site's config file. For example, to activate _sass/minima-sunrise.scss
as the skin, the setting would be:
minima:
skin: sunrise
As part of the migration to support skins, some existing Sass variables have been retired and some have been redefined as summarized in the following table:
Minima 2.0 | Minima 3.0 |
---|---|
$brand-color |
$link-base-color |
$grey-* |
$brand-* |
$orange-color |
has been removed |
This allows you to set which pages you want to appear in the navigation area and configure order of the links.
For instance, to only link to the about
and the portfolio
page, add the following to your _config.yml
:
header_pages:
- about.md
- portfolio.md
You can change the default date format by specifying site.minima.date_format
in _config.yml
.
# Minima date format
# refer to http://shopify.github.io/liquid/filters/date/ if you want to customize this
minima:
date_format: "%b %-d, %Y"
You can add custom metadata to the <head />
of your layouts by creating a file _includes/custom-head.html
in your source directory. For example, to add favicons:
- Head over to https://realfavicongenerator.net/ to add your own favicons.
- Customize default
_includes/custom-head.html
in your source directory and insert the given code snippet.
Optionally, if you have a Disqus account, you can tell Jekyll to use it to show a comments section below each post.
To enable it, add the following lines to your Jekyll site:
disqus:
shortname: my_disqus_shortname
You can find out more about Disqus' shortnames here.
Comments are enabled by default and will only appear in production, i.e., 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 YAML Front Matter.
url
, e.g. https://example.com
, must be set in you config file for Disqus to work.
From Minima-3.0
onwards, site.author
is expected to be a mapping of attributes instead of a simple scalar value:
author:
name: John Smith
email: "[email protected]"
To migrate existing metadata, update your config file and any reference to the object in your layouts and includes as summarized below:
Minima 2.x | Minima 3.0 |
---|---|
site.author |
site.author.name |
site.email |
site.author.email |
You can add links to the accounts you have on other sites, with respective icon, by adding one or more of the following options in your config.
From Minima-3.0
onwards, the usernames are to be nested under minima.social_links
, with the keys being simply the social-network's name:
minima:
social_links:
twitter: jekyllrb
github: jekyll
stackoverflow: "11111"
dribbble: jekyll
facebook: jekyll
flickr: jekyll
instagram: jekyll
linkedin: jekyll
pinterest: jekyll
telegram: jekyll
microdotblog: jekyll
keybase: jekyll
rss: rss
mastodon:
- username: jekyll
instance: example.com
- username: jekyll2
instance: example.com
gitlab:
- username: jekyll
instance: example.com
- username: jekyll2
instance: example.com
youtube: jekyll
youtube_channel: UC8CXR0-3I70i1tfPg1PAE1g
youtube_channel_name: CloudCannon
To enable Google Analytics, add the following lines to your Jekyll site:
google_analytics: UA-NNNNNNNN-N
Google Analytics will only appear in production, i.e., JEKYLL_ENV=production
To display post-excerpts on the Home Page, simply add the following to your _config.yml
:
show_excerpts: true
Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/jekyll/minima. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the Contributor Covenant code of conduct.
To set up your environment to develop this theme, run script/bootstrap
.
To test your theme, run script/server
(or bundle exec jekyll serve
) and open your browser at http://localhost:4000
. This starts a Jekyll server using your theme and the contents. As you make modifications, your site will regenerate and you should see the changes in the browser after a refresh.
The theme is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.