Hugo

Get Started

Create new site:

hugo new site <name>
cd <name>

Download required them into themes folder: You can choose to create git submodule or clone the theme

git clone/sub module http://theme-from-github into themes/<name>

Update config.yaml to choose the downloaded theme.

theme:<name>

Start hugo server:

hugo server

Create Content

All your site content resides in folder content/

hugo new <name>.md

Each content file created will have metadata associated known as frontmatter. It gets populated as defined in archetype/_default.md

List vs Single Pages

hugo categorises it’s pages into two type.

You can define whole site using these categorisation. All your folders gets list page format while individual files gets single page format.

List pages are created by default to all root level folders.
But sub level folders you can create list page by adding dir/_index.md file.
_index.md file can also be used to override the default content which gets populated in list pages.

Front Matters

archetype/_defaul.md has all frontmatter defined. By default it gets applied to all the content files created.

You can modify or add to it, say to define custom parameters.

Also if you want custom frontmatter definition for specific folders you can create archetype/<folder_name>.md file for <foder_name> specific archetype.

Content inside <folder_name> gets these frontmatter applied.

Short Codes

In your content.md file you can include html tags.

To keep your Markdown file clean from html tags we can use Short Codes These are handy html code converter which populates actual html tags at compile time Syntax:

{{< example-shortcode param1 param2 ... >}}

eg:for youtube iframe

{{< youtube id_of_video >}}

You can also create custom shortcodes using layouts/shortcodes/<name>.html files

To enable markdown syntax inside shortcodes use {{% **BOLD** %}}

Taxonomies

This is a way to organize your site content into logical groups. hugo by default provides two taxonomies tags and categories.

You can define in the front-matter to which tags and categories the page belongs.

Also for each tags and categories a default list page gets created.

Note:

config.yaml

taxonomies:
  - tag: tags
  - category: categories
  - mood: moods
# - singular: plural

Layouts or Templates

These are used to change the look and feel of the website.

You can use existing theme templates or customize either of them.

You can completely define your own theme by doing this.

To override the theme supplied templates

Section Template

layouts/_default folder applicable to all the pages in the site.

But if you want a custom template for pages in folder content/dir1 you can do so by defining templates in layouts/dir1.

This is following the same pattern as we do for archetypes to control the frontmatter.

BaseOf template and Blocks

Baseof as the name says acts as base of whole of your site. This is the best way for modularization your site.

For example if there are common elements in both list.html and single.html you can define then in layout/_default/baseof.html.

For section specific you can also do layout/section/baseof.html.

You define blocks in your single/list templates and place them in baseof template. baseof.html

{{ block "header" .}}
    This is baseof header
{{ end}}
{{ block "main" .}}
     This is baseof default content. i.e HTML
{{ end}}
{{ block "header" .}}
     This is baseof footer
{{ end}}

list/single.html

{{ define "main"}}
       This is overriding list/single page main block.
{{end}}

Variables

Variables can be define in frontmatter of each content page: <key>: <value>.

These can be access in template files single/list as : {{ .Params.<key> }}

You can also define variables in template files: {{ $key := "value"}}. Here values can be string, bool or numrical types.

You can also use them in conjunction with HTML elements.

{{ $color := "red" }}
<p style="color: {{$color}};"> This will be shown in red</p>

Hugo categorizes variables in many ways: https://gohugo.io/variables

Functions

Can only be used in template files single.html

{{ truncate 10 "This is a very long string"}}
{{ add 1 5}}
{{ singularise "dogs"}}

list.html

{{ range .Pages}}
     {{.Title}}<br>
{{end}}

Conditionals

Again can only be used in templates single.html

{{ $a :=1}} {{ $b :=2}} {{ $a :=3}}
{{ if and (gt $a $b) (gt $a $c)}}
         A is the greatest
{{ else if (gt $b $c)}}
               B is the greatest
         {{else}}
               C is the greatest
         {{end}}
{{end}}

list.html

{{ $title := .Title}}
{{ range .Site.Pages}}
        <li style = "{{ if eq .Title @title}} background-color: yellow {{end}} "> {{.Title}}</li>
{{end}}

Data

You can put json, yaml, toml files in data/ folder and access using variable name .Site.Data.<file_name>.

It acts like a input data to your site and not like a Data Base

Again only accessible in templates.

Partials

baseof blocks gives highest level of modularity. But partials is even more flexible.

Define common html abstraction templates in folder called layouts/partials/<name>.html. Now you can invoke those html partial templates in other templates.

For example define layouts/partials/header.html as

<p>{{.myKey}}</p>

Use in layouts/_default/single.html as

{{ partials "header" (dict "myKey" "myValue")}}

As you can see we have passed named parameter myKey to our defined partial and used it. Generated HTML will have <p>myValue</p>

Custom Short Codes

For layouts you have baseof, partials, etc for abstraction.

For content.md files you can only have shortcodes.

Define custom shortcodes in layouts/shortcodes/<name>.html folder.

ShortCode Examples:

{{$color:= .Get "color"}}
<p style="{{ if (.Get `color`)}} background-color: $color{{end}}">
         {{.Get "Titile"}}
</p>

<p style="color: green;">{{ .Inner }}</p>

Usage:

content/a.md

This is a.md

{{< highlight text= "I am using Type 1 Shortcode" color="yellow" >}}

{{< inner >}}
    I am using Type 2 ShortCode. 
{{< /inner >}}