Aurora theme

Aurora is a Jekyll theme for GitHub Pages. You can preview the theme to see what it looks like, or even use it today.

Usage

To use the Aurora theme:

1. Install the gem:

   gem install aurora-theme
   

   Add the following to your site's _config.yml:

   theme: aurora-theme

   If you're building your site with GitHub Pages, replace theme with this:

   remote_theme: iBug/aurora-theme

2. Optionally, if you'd like to preview your site on your computer, add the following to your site's Gemfile:

   gem "aurora-theme", group: :jekyll_plugins

Customizing

Configuration variables

Aurora will respect the following variables, if set in your site's _config.yml:

title: [The title of your site]
description: [A short description of your site's purpose]

Additionally, you may choose to set the following optional variables:

show_downloads: ["true" or "false" to indicate whether to provide a download URL]
google_analytics: [Your Google Analytics tracking ID]

If these variables are set in individual pages' front matter, Aurora will respect them, too.

title: [The title of the page]
tagline: [The tagline of the page]

Stylesheet

If you'd like to add your own custom styles:

1. Create a file called /assets/css/style.scss in your site
2. Add the following content to the top of the file, exactly as shown:

   ---
   ---
   
   @import "aurora";

3. Add any custom CSS (or Sass, including imports) you'd like immediately after the @import line

Note: If you'd like to change the theme's Sass variables, you must set new values before the @import line in your stylesheet.

Background image

By default, the background image is hosted on my GitHub Pages.

https://ibug.github.io/image/aurora.jpg

If you want to replace it with another image, override the Sass variable that contains the image url in /assets/css/style.scss:

---
---

$bg-image-url: 'https://example.com/image.jpg'
@import 'aurora';

Layouts

If you'd like to change the theme's HTML layout:

1. Copy the original template from the theme's repository
   (Pro-tip: click "raw" to make copying easier)
2. Create a file called /_layouts/default.html in your site
3. Paste the default layout content copied in the first step
4. Customize the layout as you'd like

Overriding GitHub-generated URLs

Templates often rely on URLs supplied by GitHub such as links to your repository or links to download your project. If you'd like to override one or more default URLs:

1. Look at the template source to determine the name of the variable. It will be in the form of {{ site.download.zip_url }}.

2. Specify the URL that you'd like the template to use in your site's _config.yml. For example, if the variable was site.download.zip_url, you'd add the following:

   download:
     zip_url: http://example.com/download.zip
     another_url: another value

3. When your site is built, Jekyll will use the URL you specified, rather than the default one provided by GitHub.

Note: You must remove the site. prefix, and each variable name (after the download.) should be indent with two space below download:.

For more information, see the Jekyll variables documentation.

Optional features

Aurora comes with some built-in features that you can choose to enable to make your site look better.

To enable an optional feature, simply specify this in your site's _config.yml:

features:
  some_feature: true

Some features are enabled on a per-page basis, so you will need to specify them in the front matter:

---
some_feature: true
---

A list of optional features can be found at the features page. You can also preview all the features there.

Roadmap

See the open issues for a list of proposed features (and known issues).

Project philosophy

The Aurora theme is intended to make it quick and easy for GitHub Pages users to create their first (or 100th) website. The theme should meet the vast majority of users' needs out of the box, erring on the side of simplicity rather than flexibility, and provide users the opportunity to opt-in to additional complexity if they have specific needs or wish to further customize their experience (such as adding custom CSS or modifying the default layout). It should also look great, but that goes without saying.

Contributing

Interested in contributing to Aurora? We'd love your help. Aurora is an open source project, built one contribution at a time by users like you. See the CONTRIBUTING file for instructions on how to contribute.

Previewing the theme locally

If you'd like to preview the theme locally (for example, in the process of proposing a change):

1. Clone down the theme's repository (git clone https://github.com/iBug/aurora-theme)
2. cd into the theme's directory
3. Run script/bootstrap to install the necessary dependencies
4. Run bundle exec jekyll serve to start the preview server
5. Visit localhost:4000 in your browser to preview the theme

Running tests

The theme contains a minimal test suite, to ensure a site with the theme would build successfully. To run the tests, simply run script/cibuild. You'll need to run script/bootstrap one before the test script will work.