Hugo Book Theme

Hugo documentation theme as simple as plain book

• Features
• Requirements
• Installation
• Menu
• Blog
• Configuration
• Shortcodes
• Contributing

Features

• Clean simple design
• Light and Mobile-Friendly
• Multi-language support
• Customisable
• Zero initial configuration
• Handy shortcodes
• Optional support for Disqus

Requirements

• Hugo 0.60 or higher
• Hugo extended version, read more here

Installation

Navigate to your hugo project root and run:

git submodule add https://github.com/alex-shpak/hugo-book themes/book

Then run hugo (or set theme = "book"/theme: book in configuration file)

hugo server --minify --theme book

Creating site from scratch

Below is example how to create new site from scratch

hugo new site mydocs; cd mydocs
git init
git submodule add https://github.com/alex-shpak/hugo-book themes/book
cp -R themes/book/exampleSite/content .

hugo server --minify --theme book

Menu

File tree menu (default)

By default theme will render pages from content/docs section as menu in a tree structure.
You can set title and weight in front matter of pages to adjust order and titles in menu.

Leaf bundle menu

You can also use leaf bundle and content of it's index.md as menu.
Given you have this file structure

├── content
│   ├── docs
│   │   ├── page-one.md
│   │   └── page-two.md
│   └── posts
│       ├── post-one.md
│       └── post-two.md

Create file content/docs/menu/index.md with content

+++
headless = true
+++

- [Book Example]({{< relref "/docs/" >}})
  - [Page One]({{< relref "/docs/page-one" >}})
  - [Page Two]({{< relref "/docs/page-two" >}})
- [Blog]({{< relref "/posts" >}})

And Enable it by settings BookMenuBundle: /menu in Site configuration

• Example menu
• Example config file
• Leaf bundles

Blog

Simple blog supported for section posts.
Blog is not primary use case so book theme so it has only minimal features

Configuration

Site Configuration

There are few configuration options you can add to your config.toml file.
You can also see yaml example here.

# (Optional) Set Google Analytics if you use it to track your website.
# Always put it on the top of the configuration file, otherwise it won't work
googleAnalytics = "UA-XXXXXXXXX-X"

# (Optional) If you provide a Disqus shortname, comments will be enabled on
# all pages.
disqusShortname = "my-site"

# (Optional) Set this to true if you use capital letters in file names
disablePathToLower = true

# (Optional) Set this to true to enable 'Last Modified by' date and git author
#  information on 'doc' type pages.
enableGitInfo = true

# (Optional) Theme is intended for documentation use, therefore it doesn't render taxonomy.
# You can remove related files with config below
disableKinds = ['taxonomy', 'taxonomyTerm']
  
[params]
  # (Optional, default true) Controls table of contents visibility on right side of pages.
  # Start and end levels can be controlled with markup.tableOfContents setting.
  # You can also specify this parameter per page in front matter.
  BookToC = true
  
  # (Optional, default none) Set the path to a logo for the book. If the logo is
  # /static/logo.png then the path would be 'logo.png'
  BookLogo = 'logo.png'
  
  # (Optional, default none) Set leaf bundle to render as side menu
  # When not specified file structure and weights will be used
  BookMenuBundle = '/menu'
  
  # (Optional, default docs) Specify section of content to render as menu
  # You can also set value to "*" to render all sections to menu
  BookSection = 'docs'
  
  # Set source repository location.
  # Used for 'Last Modified' and 'Edit this page' links.
  BookRepo = 'https://github.com/alex-shpak/hugo-book'
  
  # Enable 'Edit this page' links for 'doc' page type.
  # Disabled by default. Uncomment to enable. Requires 'BookRepo' param.
  # Path must point to 'content' directory of repo.
  BookEditPath = 'edit/master/exampleSite/content'
  
  # (Optional, default January 2, 2006) Configure the date format used on the pages
  # - In git information
  # - In blog posts
  BookDateFormat = 'Jan 2, 2006'
  
  # (Optional, default true) Enables search function with flexsearch,
  # Index is built on fly, therefore it might slowdown your website.
  BookSearch = true

  # (Optional, default true) Enables comments template on pages
  # By default partals/docs/comments.html includes Disqus template
  # See https://gohugo.io/content-management/comments/#configure-disqus
  # Can be overwritten by same param in page frontmatter
  BookComments = true

Multi-Language Support

Theme supports Hugo's multilingual mode, just follow configuration guide there. You can also tweak search indexing configuration per language in i18n folder.

Page Configuration

You can specify additional params per page in front matter

# Set type to 'docs' if you want to render page outside of configured section or if you render section other than 'docs'
type = 'docs'

# Set page weight to re-arrange items in file-tree menu (if BookMenuBundle not set)
weight = 10

# (Optional) Set to mark page as flat section in file-tree menu (if BookMenuBundle not set)
bookFlatSection = true

# (Optional, Experimental) Set to hide nested sections or pages at that level. Works only with file-tree menu mode
bookCollapseSection = true

# (Optional) Set true to hide page or section from side menu (if BookMenuBundle not set)
bookHidden = true

# (Optional) Set 'false' to hide ToC from page
bookToC = true

# (Optional) If you have enabled BookComments for the site, you can disable it for specific pages.
bookComments = true

Partials

There are few empty partials you can override in layouts/partials/

Partial	Placement
layouts/partials/docs/inject/head.html	Before closing <head> tag
layouts/partials/docs/inject/body.html	Before closing <body> tag
layouts/partials/docs/inject/footer.html	After page content
layouts/partials/docs/inject/menu-before.html	At the beginning of <nav> menu block
layouts/partials/docs/inject/menu-after.html	At the end of <nav> menu block

Extra Customisation

File	Description
static/favicon.png	Override default favicon
assets/_custom.scss	Customise or override scss styles
assets/_variables.scss	Override default SCSS variables
assets/_fonts.scss	Replace default font with custom fonts (e.g. local files or remote like google fonts)

Hugo Internal Templates

There are few hugo tempaltes inserted in <head>

• Google Analytics
• Open Graph

Shortcodes

Hint

Hint shortcode can be used as hint/alerts/notification block. There are 3 colors to choose: info, warning and danger.

{{< hint [info|warning|danger] >}}
**Markdown content**  
Lorem markdownum insigne. Olympo signis Delphis! Retexi Nereius nova develat
stringit, frustra Saturnius uteroque inter! Oculis non ritibus Telethusa
{{< /hint >}}

Buttons

Buttons are styled links to internal of external pages

{{< button relref="/" >}}Get Home{{< /button >}}
{{< button href="https://github.com/alex-shpak/hugo-book" >}}Contribute{{< /button >}}

Tabs

Useful if you want to show alternative information per platform or setting.

{{< tabs "uniqueid" >}}
{{< tab "MacOS" >}} # MacOS Content {{< /tab >}}
{{< tab "Linux" >}} # Linux Content {{< /tab >}}
{{< tab "Windows" >}} # Windows Content {{< /tab >}}
{{< /tabs >}}

Multi column text

Organize text in 2 or more columns to use space efficiently.

{{< columns >}} <!-- begin columns block -->
# Left Content Lorem markdownum insigne...

<---> <!-- magic sparator, between columns -->

# Mid Content Lorem markdownum insigne...

<---> <!-- magic sparator, between columns -->

# Right Content Lorem markdownum insigne...
{{< /columns >}}

Expand

Provides clickable panel that show extra hidden content.

{{< expand >}}
## Markdown content
{{< /expand >}}

Mermaid Charts

Render various charts with mermaidjs

{{< mermaid >}}
sequenceDiagram
    Alice->>Bob: Hello Bob, how are you?
    alt is sick
        Bob->>Alice: Not so good :(
    else is well
        Bob->>Alice: Feeling fresh like a daisy
    end
    opt Extra response
        Bob->>Alice: Thanks for asking
    end
{{< /mermaid >}}

KaTeX Syntax

Render math formulas with KaTeX

{{< katex >}}
x = \begin{cases}
   a &\text{if } b \\
   c &\text{if } d
\end{cases}
{{< /katex >}}

Versioning

Theme follows simple incremental versioning. e.g. v1, v2 and so on. There might be breaking changes between versions.

If you want lower maintenance use one of released versions. If you want to live on the edge of changes you can use master branch and update your website when needed.

Contributing

Extra credits to contributors

Contributions are welcome and I will review and consider pull requests.
Primary goals are:

• Keep it simple
• Keep minimal (or zero) default configuration
• Avoid interference with user-defined layouts

Feel free to open issue if you missing some configuration or customisation option.