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

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 prepend all assets links (especially post images) with {{ base_path }} so they correctly resolve in the site’s XML feeds.

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.

The Liquid based taxonomy archives found amongst the demo pages rely on this helper.

Description
All posts grouped by category	Source	Demo
All posts grouped by tags	Source	Demo

Gallery

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	For images placed in the `/images/` directory just add the filename and extension. 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: unsplash-gallery-image-1.jpg
    image_path: unsplash-gallery-image-1-th.jpg
    alt: "placeholder image 1"
    title: "Image 1 title caption"
  - url: unsplash-gallery-image-2.jpg
    image_path: unsplash-gallery-image-2-th.jpg
    alt: "placeholder image 2"
    title: "Image 2 title caption"
  - url: unsplash-gallery-image-3.jpg
    image_path: 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 — This is a sample gallery with **Markdown support**.

placeholder image 2 — 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	For images placed in the `/images/` directory just add the filename and extension. Use absolute URLS for those hosted externally.
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: 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: 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: 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 1

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

Placeholder 2

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

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.

To include an auto-generated table of contents for posts and pages, add the following helper before any actual content in your post or page.

{% include toc %}

table of contents example

Parameter	Required	Description	Default
title	Optional	Table of contents title.	`toc_label` in UI Text data file.
icon	Optional	Table of contents icon (shows before the title).	Font Awesome file-text icon. Any other FA icon can be used instead.

TOC example with custom title and icon

{% include toc icon="gears" 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/ in the gh-pages branch 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`.

Base Path

Group by Array

Gallery

Feature Row

Placeholder 1

Placeholder 2

Placeholder 3

Table of Contents

Navigation List