About Alembic

Alembic is a starting point for Jekyll projects. Rather than starting from scratch, this boilerplate is designed to get the ball rolling immediately. Install it, configure it, tweak it, push it.

Fork on GitHub  Install Alembic Tip me $5

Features

• Available as a starter kit or as Jekyll theme gem
• Simple and elegant design that can be used out of the box or as solid starting point
• Tested in all major browsers, including IE and Edge
• Configurable colours and typography in a single settings file
• Extensive set of shortcodes to include various elements; such as buttons, icons, figure images and more
• Solid typographic framework from Sassline
• Configurable navigation via a single file
• Modular Jekyll components
• Post category support in the form of a single post index page grouped by category
• Built in live search using JavaScript
• Contact form built in using Formspree
• Works on GitHub Pages out of the box
• Designed with Siteleaf in mind
• Has 9 of the most popular networks as performant sharing buttons
• Has documentation

Installation

As a Boilerplate / Fork

1. Fork the repo
2. Clone down the repo with $ git clone git@github.com:username/reponame.git
3. Delete the following unnecessary files/folders: demo/, CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md, CONTRIBUTING.md, LICENSE, screenshot.png and alembic-jekyll-theme.gemspec
4. Change the logo.svg and default-social-image.png in the assets/ folder to your own branding
5. Configure your site settings using the _config.yml, more info can be found in Configuration
6. Change the CNAME record to your projects’ record
7. Install bundler with $ gem install bundler
8. Install gems with $ bundle install
9. Run Jekyll with $ bundle exec jekyll serve --watch
10. Begin hacking for your project

As a Jekyll 3.3 theme gem

1. Download the starter /demo content, quick download link
2. Configure your site settings using the _config.yml, more info can be found in Configuration
3. Create a logo.svg and default-social-image.png in a new assets/ folder
4. Install bundler with $ gem install bundler
5. Install gems with $ bundle install
6. Run Jekyll with $ bundle exec jekyll serve --watch
7. Begin hacking for your project

Boilerplate & Theme differences

The boilerplate kit is better for more drastic hacking and changes, a project that’s quite different to any other and needs a lot of custom work done. Additionally you’ll only be able to use this method if you want to host it on GitHub Pages, as themes can’t be submitted… yet.

Using the theme will allow you to receive updates made and will be more programmatic. To make your own changes you’ll need to overwrite the files with your own. For example: If I want to change the colours and typography of my site I’ll need to copy the _settings.scss file and create my own in _sass/_settings.scss with my own changes. This is the same for all files within the theme, which means your own project will be more lean than if you were to use the boilerplate.