minima

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.

Theme preview

minima theme preview

Installation

Add this line to your Jekyll site’s Gemfile:

gem "minima"

And add this line to your Jekyll site:

theme: minima

And then execute:

$ bundle

Contents At-A-Glance

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.

Layouts

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 ` <div class="home">

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</div> ` and are linked to this file via FrontMatter declaration layout: default.

  • home.html — The layout for your landing-page / home-page / index-page.
  • page.html — The layout for your documents that contain FrontMatter, but are not posts.
  • post.html — The layout for your posts.

Includes

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.
  • header.html — Defines the site’s main header section.
  • icon-* files — Inserts github and twitter ids with respective icons.

Sass

Refers to .scss files within the _sass directory that define the theme’s styles.

  • minima.scss — The core file imported by preprocessed main.scss, it defines the variable defaults for the theme and also further imports sass partials to supplement itself.
  • minima/_base.scss — Resets and defines base styles for various HTML elements.
  • minima/_layout.scss — Defines the visual style for various layouts.
  • minima/_syntax-highlighting.scss — Defines the styles for syntax-highlighting.

Assets

Refers to various asset files within the assets directory. Contains the main.scss that imports sass files from within the _sass directory. This main.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, and will be copied over as is, to the final transformed site directory.

Usage

Customization

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/main.scss. To override the default CSS, the file has to exist at your site source. Do either of the following:

  • Create a new instance of main.scss at site source.
    • Create a new file main.scss at <your-site>/assets/
    • Add the frontmatter dashes, and
    • Add @import "minima";, to <your-site>/assets/main.scss
    • Add your custom CSS.
  • Download the file from this repo
    • Create a new file main.scss at <your-site>/assets/
    • Copy the contents at assets/main.scss onto the main.scss you just created, and edit away!
  • Copy directly from Minima 2.0 gem
    • Go to your local minima gem installation directory ( run bundle show minima to get the path to it ).
    • Copy the assets/ folder from there into the root of <your-site>
    • Change whatever values you want, inside <your-site>/assets/main.scss

–

Change default date format

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"

–

Enabling comments (via Disqus)

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.

–

Enabling Google Analytics

To enable Google Anaytics, 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

Contributing

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.

Development

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.

License

The theme is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.