Gokarna is an opinionated theme with a focus on minimalism and simplicity.

Installation

The following steps are here to help you initialize your new website. If you don’t know Hugo at all, we strongly suggest you learn more about it by following this great documentation for beginners.

a. Create Your Project

Hugo provides a new command to create a new website:

hugo new site my_website
cd my_website

b. Install the Theme

The theme’s repository is: https://github.com/526avijitgupta/gokarna.

You can clone this repository to the themes directory:

git clone https://github.com/526avijitgupta/gokarna.git themes/gokarna

Or, create an empty git repository and make this repository a submodule of your site directory:

git init
git submodule add https://github.com/526avijitgupta/gokarna.git themes/gokarna

c. Basic Configuration

The following is a basic configuration for the gokarna theme:

baseURL = "http://example.org/"
defaultContentLanguage = "en"
languageCode = "en"

title = "My New Hugo Site"

theme = "gokarna"

# Automatically generate robots.txt
enableRobotsTXT = true

# Automatically set last modified dates using Git commit dates
enableGitInfo = true

[menu]
  [[menu.main]]
    # Unique identifier for a menu item
    identifier = "posts"

    url = "/posts/"
    
    # You can add extra information before the name (HTML format is supported), such as icons
    pre = ""

    # You can add extra information after the name (HTML format is supported), such as icons
    post = ""

    # Display name
    name = "Posts"

    # Weights are used to determine the ordering
    weight = 1

  [[menu.main]]
    identifier = "tags"
    name = "Tags"
    url = "/tags/"
    weight = 2
    
  [[menu.main]]
    identifier = "github"
    url = "https://github.com"
    weight = 3
    
    # We use feather-icons: https://feathericons.com/
    pre = "<span data-feather='github'></span>"

d. Create Your First Post

Here is the way to create your first post:

hugo new "content/posts/My First Post.md"

Feel free to edit the post file by adding some sample content and replacing the title value in the beginning of the file.

For posts you need to add type: "post" in the markdown metadata. We currently support 2 types of content:

  1. Post (type: "post"): A normal blog-post with tags, date, & content.
  2. Page (type: "page"): A standalone content page that will just render the markdown you wrote. You can use it to write custom pages which should not be a part of posts. Like showing your projects portfolio. You can read in detail about this on the Theme Documentation - Advanced page.

Using archetypes

hugo new will automatically use an appropriate archetype (see archetypes/) and insert front matter depending on the location of your content:

  • hugo new content/posts/$PostName.md uses archetypes/posts.md, and automatically sets type: "post"
  • hugo new content/$PageName.md uses archetypes/default.md, and automatically sets type: "page"

Gokarna employs custom front matter, which is included in the archetypes. The creation date of the content is included in the front matter, and the Markdown filename is used as the default title.

e. Launching the Website Locally

Launch by using the following command:

hugo serve

Go to http://localhost:1313.

f. Build the Website

When your site is ready to deploy, run the following command:

hugo

A public folder will be generated, containing all static content and assets for your website. It can now be deployed on any web server.

The website can be automatically published and hosted with Netlify, AWS Amplify, Github pages, Render and more…

Configuration

In addition to Hugo global configuration and menu configuration, gokarna lets you define the following parameters in your site configuration (here is a config.toml, whose values are default).

[params]
  # URL for the avatar on homepage
  avatarURL = ""

  # Choose one of size-xs, size-s, size-m, size-l & size-xl. (Default: size-m)
  avatarSize = ""

  # Description to display on homepage
  description = "Sky above, sand below & peace within"

  # Accent color is displayed when you hover over <a> tags
  accentColor = "#FF4D4D"

  # Display "back to top" button on posts and pages
  ShowBackToTopButton = true

  # You can use this to inject any HTML in the <head> tag.
  # Ideal usecase for this is to import custom js/css or add your analytics snippet
  customHeadHTML = ""

  # Keywords relevant for SEO
  metaKeywords = ["blog", "gokarna", "hugo"]

  # If you want to display posts on the homepage, the options are
  # "popular" (order posts by weight), "recent" (order posts by date)
  # or "" (do not display, default option)
  showPostsOnHomePage = ""

  # Defines number of posts displayed on homepage if showPostsOnHomePage option is set
  # Default value is 4
  numberPostsOnHomePage = 4

  # Configure how post dates are displayed
  # dateFormat must be set if lastmod is declared in front matter, or enableGitInfo
  # is true
  dateFormat = "January 2, 2006"

  # Footer text
  footer = "The Marauders"

Avatar URL

This is the image url for the avatar on the homepage and the header.

[params]
  avatarURL = "/images/avatar.jpg"

Avatar Size

You have an option to change the avatar size on the homepage. Options are: size-xs, size-s, size-m, size-l & size-xl. (Default: size-m)

[params]
  avatarSize = "size-l"

Description

Description to display on homepage below the title and avatar.

[params]
  description = "Hello, world!"

Accent Color

Accent color is displayed when you hover over <a> tags. It takes a hex/rgb color code. Default is #FF4D4D

[params]
  accentColor = "#08F"

Posts on home page

If you want to display posts on the homepage, the options are:

  • popular: Show popular posts on home page if the value is set to popular. It sorts the all the posts by it’s weight attribute in ascending order. Read more about it here.
  • recent: Show recent posts on home page if the value is set to recent
  • Do not show anything if the variable is unset or an empty string.

You can define how many posts will be displayed on homepage by setting numberPostsOnHomePage. If numberPostsOnHomePage is absent (empty) or zero the default value is used.

[params]
  showPostsOnHomePage = "popular"
  numberPostsOnHomePage = 3

Date format

The date format being used across can be chaged. For valid date strings see: https://pkg.go.dev/time#pkg-constants

[params]
  dateFormat = "2 January, 2006"

Text to display in the footer section

[params]
  footer = "Text in footer"

footer can include Markdown syntax. This is best used for including hyperlinks, emoji, or text formatting.

Previous and Next buttons

At the bottom of a post, show the previous and next post chronologically.

Warning: Not compatible with the .Weight parameter.

If any post YAML contains weight:, the posts will not appear by Date. See Hugo’s default sort.

[params]
  togglePreviousAndNextButtons = "true"

Displaying content on the homepage

Content to display on homepage below the social icons, using the contents of content/index-about.md.

Custom Head HTML

You can add custom HTML in head section

[params]
  customHeadHTML = "<script>console.log('Any HTML')</script>"

Read more in the advanced section here

robots.txt

Automatically generate robots.txt

enableRobotsTXT = true

Favicons, Browserconfig, Manifest

It is recommended to put your own favicons:

  • apple-touch-icon.png (180x180)
  • favicon-32x32.png (32x32)
  • favicon-16x16.png (16x16)
  • mstile-150x150.png (150x150)
  • android-chrome-192x192.png (192x192)
  • android-chrome-512x512.png (512x512)

into /static directory. They’re easily created via favicon.io or realfavicongenerator.net.