Helpers

You can think of these Jekyll helpers as little shortcuts. Since GitHub Pages doesn’t allow most plugins — custom tags are out. Instead the theme leverages includes to do something similar.

Base Path

Deprecated. Use relative_url filter instead.

Instead of repeating {{ site.url }}{{ site.baseurl }} over and over again to create absolute URLs, you can use {{ base_path }} instead. Simply add {% include base_path %} to layouts, posts, pages, collections, or other includes and you’re good to go.

ProTip: It’s a good practice to use absolute URL paths for assets (especially post images) so they correctly resolve in the site’s XML feeds. Example: {{ "/assets/images/filename.jpg" | relative_url }} ~> https://yourdoamin.com/assets/images/filename.jpg

Group by Array

Jekyll Group-By-Array by Max White.

A liquid include file for Jekyll that allows an object to be grouped by an array.

Figure

Generate a <figure> element with a single image and caption.

Include Parameter Required Description
image_path Required Full path to image eg: /assets/images/filename.jpg. Use absolute URLS for those hosted externally.
alt Optional Alternate text for image.
caption Optional Figure caption text. Markdown is allowed.

Using the figure include like so:

{% include figure image_path="/assets/images/unsplash-image-10.jpg" alt="this is a placeholder image" caption="This is a figure caption." %}

Will output the following:

this is a placeholder image
This is a figure caption.
<figure>
  <img src="/assets/images/unsplash-image-10.jpg" alt="this is a placeholder image">
  <figcaption>This is a figure caption.</figcaption>
</figure>

Generate a <figure> element with optional caption of arrays with two or more images.

To place a gallery add the necessary YAML Front Matter.

Name Required Description
url Optional URL to link gallery image to (eg. a larger detail image).
image_path Required Full path to image eg: /assets/images/filename.jpg. Use absolute URLS for those hosted externally.
alt Optional Alternate text for image.
title Optional Title text for image. Will display as a caption in a Magnific Popup overlay when linked to a larger image with url.
gallery:
  - url: /assets/images/unsplash-gallery-image-1.jpg
    image_path: /assets/images/unsplash-gallery-image-1-th.jpg
    alt: "placeholder image 1"
    title: "Image 1 title caption"
  - url: /assets/images/unsplash-gallery-image-2.jpg
    image_path: /assets/images/unsplash-gallery-image-2-th.jpg
    alt: "placeholder image 2"
    title: "Image 2 title caption"
  - url: /assets/images/unsplash-gallery-image-3.jpg
    image_path: /assets/images/unsplash-gallery-image-3-th.jpg
    alt: "placeholder image 3"
    title: "Image 3 title caption"

And then drop-in the gallery include in the body where you’d like it to appear.

Include Parameter Required Description Default
id Optional To add multiple galleries to a document uniquely name them in the YAML Front Matter and reference in {% include gallery id="gallery_id" %} gallery
class Optional Use to add a class attribute to the surrounding <figure> element for additional styling needs.  
caption Optional Gallery caption description. Markdown is allowed.  
{% include gallery caption="This is a sample gallery with **Markdown support**." %}

Gallery example with caption:

placeholder image 1 placeholder image 2 placeholder image 3
This is a sample gallery with Markdown support.

More Gallery Goodness: A few more examples and source code can be seen in this sample gallery post.

Feature Row

Designed to compliment the splash page layout as a way of arranging and aligning “feature blocks” containing text or image.

To add a feature row containing three content blocks with text and image, add the following YAML Front Matter

Name Required Description Default
image_path Required Full path to image eg: /assets/images/filename.jpg. Use absolute URLS for those hosted externally.  
image_caption Optional Caption for image, Markdown is supported eg: `“Image from Unsplash  
alt Optional Alternate text for image.  
title Optional Content block title.  
excerpt Optional Content block excerpt text. Markdown is allowed.  
url Optional URL that the button should link to.  
btn_label Optional Button text label. more_label in UI Text data file.
btn_class Optional Button style. See utility classes for options. btn
feature_row:
  - image_path: /assets/images/unsplash-gallery-image-1-th.jpg
    alt: "placeholder image 1"
    title: "Placeholder 1"
    excerpt: "This is some sample content that goes here with **Markdown** formatting."
  - image_path: /assets/images/unsplash-gallery-image-2-th.jpg
    alt: "placeholder image 2"
    title: "Placeholder 2"
    excerpt: "This is some sample content that goes here with **Markdown** formatting."
    url: "#test-link"
    btn_label: "Read More"
    btn_class: "btn--inverse"
  - image_path: /assets/images/unsplash-gallery-image-3-th.jpg
    title: "Placeholder 3"
    excerpt: "This is some sample content that goes here with **Markdown** formatting."

And then drop-in the feature row include in the body where you’d like it to appear.

Include Parameter Required Description Default
id Optional To add multiple rows to a document uniquely name them in the YAML Front Matter and reference in {% include feature_row id="row2" %} feature_row
type Optional Alignment of the featured blocks in the row. Options include: left, center, or right aligned.  
{% include feature_row %}
placeholder image 1

Placeholder 1

This is some sample content that goes here with Markdown formatting.

placeholder image 2

Placeholder 2

This is some sample content that goes here with Markdown formatting.

Read More

Placeholder 3

This is some sample content that goes here with Markdown formatting.

More Feature Row Goodness: A few more examples and source code can be seen in the demo site.

Responsive Video Embed

Embed a video from YouTube or Vimeo that responsively sizes to fit the width of its parent.

Parameter Required Description
id Required ID of the video
provider Required Hosting provider of the video, either youtube or vimeo

YouTube

To embed the following YouTube video at url https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsxDH4HcOWA (long version) or https://youtu.be/XsxDH4HcOWA (short version) into a post or page’s main content you’d use:

{% include video id="XsxDH4HcOWA" provider="youtube" %}

To embed it as a video header you’d use the following YAML Front Matter

header:
  video:
    id: XsxDH4HcOWA
    provider: youtube

Vimeo

To embed the following Vimeo video at url https://vimeo.com/212731897 into a post or page’s main content you’d use:

{% include video id="212731897" provider="vimeo" %}

To embed it as a video header you’d use the following YAML Front Matter

header:
  video:
    id: 212731897
    provider: vimeo

Table of Contents

Auto-generated table of contents list for your posts and pages can be enabled using two methods.

table of contents example

Enabled via YAML Front Matter

Add toc: true to the YAML Front Matter of any post or page.

Parameter Required Description Default
toc Optional Show table of contents. (boolean) false
toc_label Optional Table of contents title. (string) toc_label in UI Text data file.
toc_icon Optional Table of contents icon, displays before the title. (string) Font Awesome file-alt icon. Other FA icons can be used instead.
toc_sticky Optional Stick table of contents to top of screen. false

TOC example with custom title and icon

---
toc: true
toc_label: "My Table of Contents"
toc_icon: "cog"
---

Note: using both methods will have unintended results. Be sure to remove {% include toc %} placed table of contents from your content when using toc: true.

Enabled via toc include (deprecated)

To include a Kramdown auto-generated table of contents for posts and pages, add the following helper to your content.

{% include toc %}

Note: this method only works with Markdown files.

Deprecated: toc helper will be removed in the next major version of the theme. It is encouraged that you migrate to the YAML Front Matter method above.

Parameter Required Description Default
title Optional Table of contents title. (string) toc_label in UI Text data file.
icon Optional Table of contents icon, displays before the title. (string) Font Awesome file-alt icon. Other FA icons can be used instead.

TOC example with custom title and icon

{% include toc icon="cog" title="My Table of Contents" %}

Include an unordered list of links to be used as sidebar navigation with the nav_list helper.

1. Start by adding a set of titles and URLs to _data/navigation.yml in the same way the main navigation is built.

foo navigation example:

# _data/navigation.yml
foo:
  - title: "Link 1 Title"
    url: /link-1-page-url/

  - title: "Link 2 Title"
    url: http://external-link.com

  - title: "Link 3 Title"
    url: /link-3-page-url/

  - title: "Link 4 Title"
    url: /link-4-page-url/

For a navigation list that has child pages you’d structure the YAML like this:

# _data/navigation.yml
foo:
  - title: "Parent Link 1"
    url: /parent-1-page-url/
    children:
      - title: "Child Link 1"
        url: /child-1-page-url/
      - title: "Child Link 2"
        url: /child-2-page-url/

  - title: "Parent Link 2"
    url: /parent-2-page-url/
    children:
      - title: "Child Link 1"
        url: /child-1-page-url/
      - title: "Child Link 2"
        url: /child-2-page-url/
      - title: "Child Link 3"
        url: /child-3-page-url/

2: On the page(s) you’d like the foo sidebar nav add the following YAML Front Matter, referencing the same key name.

sidebar:
  nav: "foo"

ProTip: If you’re applying the same navigation list to several pages setting it as a Front Matter default is the better option.

The theme’s documentation is built with the nav_list helper so if you’d like an example to dissect take a look at navigation.yml, _config.yml and _doc collection in the /docs/ folder of this repo.

To add a navigation list to a post or page’s main content instead of the sidebar use the include this way:

{% include nav_list nav="foo" %}
Parameter Required Description
items Required Name of the links array found in _data/navigation.yml.

Updated: