---
weight: 1
title: "Theme Documentation - Basics"
date: 2020-03-06T21:29:01+08:00
lastmod: 2020-03-06T21:29:01+08:00
draft: false
author: "Dillon"
authorLink: "https://dillonzq.com"
description: "Discover what the Hugo - LoveIt theme is all about and the core-concepts behind it."
license: ""

tags: ["installation", "configuration"]
categories: ["documentation"]
hiddenFromHomePage: false

featuredImage: "/images/theme-documentation-basics/featured-image.jpg"
featuredImagePreview: ""

toc: true
autoCollapseToc: false
math: false
lightgallery: true
linkToMarkdown: true
share:
  enable: true
comment: true
---

Discover what the Hugo - **LoveIt** theme is all about and the core-concepts behind it.

<!--more-->

## 1 Requirements

Thanks to the simplicity of Hugo, [Hugo](https://gohugo.io/) is the only dependency of this theme.

Just install latest version of [:(far fa-file-archive): Hugo (> 0.62.0)](https://gohugo.io/getting-started/installing/) for your OS (**Windows**, **Linux**, **macOS**).

{{< admonition note "Why not support earlier versions of Hugo?" >}}
Since [Markdown Render Hooks](https://gohugo.io/getting-started/configuration-markup/#markdown-render-hooks) was introduced in the [Hugo Christmas Edition](https://gohugo.io/news/0.62.0-relnotes/), this theme only supports Hugo versions above **v0.62.0**.
{{< /admonition >}}

## 2 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](https://gohugo.io/getting-started/quick-start/).

### 2.1 Create Your Project

Hugo provides a `new` command to create a new website:

```bash
hugo new site my_website
cd my_website
```

### 2.2 Install the Theme

The **LoveIt** theme’s repository is: [https://github.com/dillonzq/LoveIt](https://github.com/dillonzq/LoveIt).

You can download the [latest release :(far fa-file-archive): .zip file](https://github.com/dillonzq/LoveIt/releases) of the theme and extract it in the `themes` directory.

Alternatively, clone this repository to the `themes` directory:

```bash
git clone -b master https://github.com/dillonzq/LoveIt.git themes/LoveIt
```

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

```bash
git init
git submodule -b master add https://github.com/dillonzq/LoveIt.git themes/LoveIt
```

### 2.3 Basic Configuration {#basic-configuration}

The following is a basic configuration for the LoveIt theme:

```toml
baseURL = "http://example.org/"
# language code
languageCode = "en"
title = "My New Hugo Site"

# Change the default theme to be use when building the site with Hugo
theme = "LoveIt"

[params]
  # LoveIt theme version
  version = "0.1.X"

[menu]
  [[menu.main]]
    identifier = "posts"
    # you can add extra information before the name (HTML format is allowed), such as icons
    pre = ""
    name = "Posts"
    url = "/posts/"
    # title will be shown when you hover on this menu link
    title = ""
    weight = 1
  [[menu.main]]
    identifier = "tags"
    pre = ""
    name = "Tags"
    url = "/tags/"
    title = ""
    weight = 2
  [[menu.main]]
    identifier = "categories"
    pre = ""
    name = "Categories"
    url = "/categories/"
    title = ""
    weight = 3
  [[menu.main]]
    identifier = "about"
    pre = ""
    name = "About"
    url = "/about/"
    title = ""
    weight = 4
```

{{< admonition >}}
When building the website, you can set a theme by using `--theme` option. However, we suggest you modify the configuration file (**config.toml**) and set the theme as the default.
{{< /admonition >}}

### 2.4 Create Your First Post

Here is the way to create your first post:

```bash
  hugo new posts/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.

{{< admonition >}}
By default all posts and pages are created as a draft. If you want to render these pages, remove the property `draft: true` from the metadata or set the property `draft: false`.
{{< /admonition >}}

### 2.5 Launching the Website Locally

Launch by using the following command:

```bash
hugo serve
```

Go to `http://localhost:1313`.

![Basic configuration preview](/images/theme-documentation-basics/basic-configuration-preview.png "Basic configuration preview")

{{< admonition tip >}}
When you run `hugo serve`, when the contents of the files change, the page automatically refreshes with the changes.
{{< /admonition >}}

### 2.6 Build the Website

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

```bash
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.

{{< admonition tip >}}
The website can be automatically published and hosted with [Netlify](https://www.netlify.com/) (Read more about [Automated HUGO deployments with Netlify](https://www.netlify.com/blog/2015/07/30/hosting-hugo-on-netlifyinsanely-fast-deploys/)).
Alternatively, you can use [AWS Amplify](https://gohugo.io/hosting-and-deployment/hosting-on-aws-amplify/), [Github pages](https://gohugo.io/hosting-and-deployment/hosting-on-github/), [Render](https://gohugo.io/hosting-and-deployment/hosting-on-render/) and more...
{{< /admonition >}}

## 3 Configuration

### 3.1 Site Configuration {#site-configuration}

In addition to [Hugo global configuration](https://gohugo.io/overview/configuration/) and [menu configuration](#basic-configuration), **LoveIt** lets you define the following parameters in your site configuration (here is a `config.toml`, whose values are default).

{{< admonition >}}
Note that some of these parameters are explained in details in other sections of this documentation.
{{< /admonition >}}

```toml
[params]
  # LoveIt theme version
  version = "0.1.X"
  # site description
  description = "About LoveIt Theme"
  # site keywords
  keywords = ["Theme", "Hugo"]
  # site default theme ("light", "dark", "auto")
  defaultTheme = "auto"
  # public git repo url only then enableGitInfo is true
  gitRepo = ""
  # Header info
  [params.header]
    # desktop header mode ("fixed", "normal", "auto")
    desktopMode = "fixed"
    # mobile header mode ("fixed", "normal", "auto")
    mobileMode = "auto"
  # Footer Copyright Info
  [params.footer]
    # Site creation time
    since = 2019
    # ICP info only in China (HTML format is allowed)
    icp = ""
    # license info (HTML format is allowed)
    license= '<a rel="license external nofollow noopener noreffer" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/" target="_blank">CC BY-NC 4.0</a>'
  # Home Page Info
  [params.home]
    # Home Page Profile
    [params.home.profile]
      enable = true
      # Gravatar Email for preferred avatar in home page
      gravatarEmail = ""
      # URL of avatar shown in home page
      avatarURL = "/images/avatar.png"
      # subtitle shown in home page
      subtitle = "This is my new hugo site"
      # whether to use typeit animation for subtitle
      typeit = true
      # whether to show social links
      social = true
    # Home Page Posts
    [params.home.posts]
      enable = true
      # special amount of posts in each home posts page
      paginate = 6
      # default behavior when you don't set "hiddenFromHomePage" in front matter
      defaultHiddenFromHomePage = false
  # Social Info in home page
  [params.social]
    GitHub = "xxxx"
    Linkedin = "xxxx"
    Twitter = "xxxx"
    Instagram = "xxxx"
    Email = "xxxx@xxxx.com"
    Facebook = "xxxx"
    Telegram = "xxxx"
    # Medium = "xxxx"
    # Gitlab = "xxxx"
    Youtubelegacy = "xxxx"
    # Youtubecustom = "xxxx"
    # Youtubechannel = "xxxx"
    # Tumblr ="xxxx"
    # Quora = "xxxx"
    # Keybase = "xxxx"
    # Pinterest = "xxxx"
    # Reddit = "xxxx"
    # Codepen = "xxxx"
    # FreeCodeCamp = "xxxx"
    # Bitbucket = "xxxx"
    # Stackoverflow = "xxxx"
    # Weibo = "xxxx"
    # Odnoklassniki = "xxxx"
    # VK = "xxxx"
    # Flickr = "xxxx"
    # Xing = "xxxx"
    # Snapchat = "xxxx"
    # Soundcloud = "xxxx"
    # Spotify = "xxxx"
    # Bandcamp = "xxxx"
    # Paypal = "xxxx"
    # Fivehundredpx = "xxxx"
    # Mix = "xxxx"
    # Goodreads = "xxxx"
    # Lastfm = "xxxx"
    # Foursquare = "xxxx"
    # Hackernews = "xxxx"
    # Kickstarter = "xxxx"
    # Patreon = "xxxx"
    # Steam = "xxxx"
    # Twitch = "xxxx"
    # Strava = "xxxx"
    # Skype = "xxxx"
    # Whatsapp = "xxxx"
    # Zhihu = "xxxx"
    # Douban = "xxxx"
    # Angellist = "xxxx"
    # Slidershare = "xxxx"
    # Jsfiddle = "xxxx"
    # Deviantart = "xxxx"
    # Behance = "xxxx"
    # Dribble = "xxxx"
    # Wordpress = "xxxx"
    # Vine = "xxxx"
    # Googlescholar = "xxxx"
    # Researchgate = "xxxx"
    # Mastodon = "xxxx"
    # MastodonPrefix = "https://mastodon.technology/"
    # Thingiverse = "xxxx"
    # Devto = "xxxx"
    # Gitea = "xxxx"
    # XMPP = "xxxx"
    # Matrix = "xxxx"
    # Bilibili = "xxxx"

  # Page config
  [params.page]
    # whether to use lightgallery in the page
    lightgallery = true
    # whether to show link to Raw Markdown content of the post
    linkToMarkdown = true
  # mathematical formulas (KaTeX https://katex.org/)
  [params.math]
    enable = true
    # default block delimiter is $$ ... $$ and \\[ ... \\]
    blockLeftDelimiter = ""
    blockRightDelimiter = ""
    # default inline delimiter is $ ... $ and \\( ... \\)
    inlineLeftDelimiter = ""
    inlineRightDelimiter = ""
    # KaTeX extension copy_tex
    copyTex = true
    # KaTeX extension mhchem
    mhchem = true
  # Social Share Links in post page
  [params.share]
    enable = true
    Twitter = true
    Facebook = true
    Linkedin = true
    Whatsapp = true
    Pinterest = true
    # Tumblr = true
    HackerNews = true
    # Reddit = true
    # VK = true
    # Buffer = true
    # Xing = true
    # Line = true
    # Instapaper = true
    # Pocket = true
    # Digg = true
    # Stumbleupon = true
    # Flipboard = true
    # Weibo = true
    # Renren = true
    # Myspace = true
    # Blogger = true
    # Baidu = true
    # Odnoklassniki = true
    # Evernote = true
    # Skype = true
    # Trello = true
    # Mix = true
  # Comment Config
  [params.comment]
    enable = true
    # Disqus Comment Config (https://disqus.com/)
    [params.comment.disqus]
      # Disqus shortname to use Disqus in posts
      shortname = "dillonzq"
    # Gittalk Comment Config (https://github.com/gitalk/gitalk)
    [params.comment.gitalk]
      owner = ""
      repo = ""
      clientId = ""
      clientSecret = ""
    # Valine Comment Config (https://github.com/xCss/Valine)
    [params.comment.valine]
      enable = false
      appId = ""
      appKey = ""
      placeholder = "Your comment ..."
      notify = false
      verify = true
      avatar = "mp"
      meta= ""
      pageSize = 10
      lang = "en"
      visitor = true
      recordIP = true
    # Facebook Comment Config (https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/comments)
    [params.comment.facebook]
      enable = false
      width = "100%"
      numPosts = 10
      appId = ""
      languageCode = "en_US"

  # site verification code for Google/Bing/Yandex/Pinterest/Baidu
  [params.verification]
    google = ""
    bing = ""
    yandex = ""
    pinterest = ""
    baidu = ""
  # Publisher Info just for SEO
  [params.publisher]
    name = "xxxx"
    [params.publisher.logo]
      url = "logo.png"
      width = 127
      height = 40
  # Website Log Info just for SEO
  [params.logo]
    url = "logo.png"
    width = 127
    height = 40
  # Website Image Info just for SEO
  [params.image]
    url = "cover.png"
    width = 800
    height = 600
  # CSS and JS Files CDN
  [params.cdn]
    # fontawesome-free@5.12.1 https://fontawesome.com/
    fontawesomeFreeCSS = ''
    # animate.css@3.7.2 https://github.com/daneden/animate.css
    animateCSS = ''
    # smooth-scroll@16.1.2 https://github.com/cferdinandi/smooth-scroll
    smoothScrollJS = ''
    # sharer@0.4.0 https://github.com/ellisonleao/sharer.js
    sharerJS = ''
    # lazysizes@5.2.0 https://github.com/aFarkas/lazysizes
    lazysizesJS = ''
    # lightgallery@1.1.3 lg-thumbnail@1.1.0 lg-zoom@1.1.0 https://github.com/sachinchoolur/lightgallery.js
    lightgalleryCSS = ''
    lightgalleryJS = ''
    lightgalleryThumbnailJS = ''
    lightgalleryZoomJS = ''
    # typeit@6.5.1 https://github.com/alexmacarthur/typeit
    typeitJS = ''
    # katex@0.11.1 https://github.com/KaTeX/KaTeX
    katexCSS = ''
    katexJS = ''
    katexAutoRenderJS = ''
    katexCopyTexCSS = ''
    katexCopyTexJS = ''
    katexMhchemJS = ''
    # mermaid@8.4.8 https://github.com/knsv/mermaid
    mermaidJS = ''
    # aplayer@1.10.1 https://github.com/MoePlayer/APlayer
    aplayerCSS = ''
    aplayerJS = ''
    # meting@2.0.1 https://github.com/metowolf/MetingJS
    metingJS = ''
    # echarts@4.6.0 https://echarts.apache.org/
    echartsJS = ''
    echartsMacaronsJS = ''
    # gitalk@1.6.0 https://github.com/gitalk/gitalk
    gitalkCSS = ''
    gitalkJS = ''
    # valine@1.3.10 https://valine.js.org/
    valineJS = ''

# Markup related configuration in Hugo
[markup]
  # Syntax Highlighting (https://gohugo.io/content-management/syntax-highlighting)
  [markup.highlight]
    codeFences = true
    guessSyntax = true
    lineNoStart = 1
    lineNos = true
    lineNumbersInTable = true
    noClasses = false
    style = "monokai"
    tabWidth = 4
  # Goldmark is from Hugo 0.60 the default library used for Markdown
  [markup.goldmark]
    [markup.goldmark.extensions]
      definitionList = true
      footnote = true
      linkify = true
      strikethrough = true
      table = true
      taskList = true
      typographer = true
    [markup.goldmark.renderer]
      # whether to use HTML tags directly in the document
      unsafe = true
  # Table Of Contents settings
  [markup.tableOfContents]
    startLevel = 2
    endLevel = 6

# Author Info
[author]
  name = "xxxx"
  link = ""

# Sitemap Info
[sitemap]
  changefreq = "weekly"
  filename = "sitemap.xml"
  priority = 0.5

# Permalinks Info (https://gohugo.io/content-management/urls/#permalinks)
[Permalinks]
  # posts = ":year/:month/:filename"
  posts = ":filename"

# Privacy Info (https://gohugo.io/about/hugo-and-gdpr/)
[privacy]
  [privacy.googleAnalytics]
    anonymizeIP = true

  [privacy.youtube]
    privacyEnhanced = true

# Options to make output .md files
[mediaTypes]
  [mediaTypes."text/plain"]
    suffixes = ["md"]

# Options to make output .md files
[outputFormats.MarkDown]
  mediaType = "text/plain"
  isPlainText = true
  isHTML = false

# Options to make hugo output files
[outputs]
  home = ["HTML", "RSS"]
  page = ["HTML", "MarkDown"]
  section = ["HTML", "RSS"]
  taxonomy = ["HTML", "RSS"]
  taxonomyTerm = ["HTML"]
```

![Complete configuration preview](/images/theme-documentation-basics/complete-configuration-preview.gif "Complete configuration preview")

### 3.2 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`. They’re easily created via [https://realfavicongenerator.net/](https://realfavicongenerator.net/).

Customize `browserconfig.xml` and `site.webmanifest` to set theme-color and background-color.

### 3.3 Add Logo and Cover for SEO

Add a logo image (127x40) and a cover image (800x600) in the `static` directory.

### 3.4 Style Customization

**LoveIt** theme has been built to be as configurable as possible by defining custom `.scss` style files.

The directory including the custom `.scss` style files is `config/css` relative to **your project path**.

In `_override.scss`, you can override the variables in `themes/LoveIt/assets/css/_variables.scss` to customize the style.

Here is a example:

```scss
@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Fira+Mono:400,700&display=swap&subset=latin-ext');
$code-font-family: Fira Mono, Source Code Pro, Menlo, Consolas, Monaco, monospace;
```

In `_custom.scss`, you can add some css style code to customize the style.

## 4 Multilingual and i18n

**LoveIt** theme is fully compatible with Hugo multilingual mode.

It provides:

* Translation strings for default values (**English**, **Chinese** and **French**). **Feel free to contribute!**
* In-browser language switching

![Language Switch](/images/theme-documentation-basics/language-switch.gif "Language Switch")

### 4.1 Basic Configuration

After learning [how Hugo handle multilingual websites](https://gohugo.io/content-management/multilingual), define your languages in your [site configuration](#site-configuration).

For example with English, Chinese and French website:

```toml
# [en, zh-CN, fr, ...] determines default content language
defaultContentLanguage = "en"

[languages]
  [languages.en]
    weight = 1
    title = "My New Hugo Site"
    languageCode = "en"
    languageName = "English"
    [[languages.en.menu.main]]
      identifier = "posts"
      pre = ""
      name = "Posts"
      url = "/posts/"
      title = ""
      weight = 1
    [[languages.en.menu.main]]
      identifier = "tags"
      pre = ""
      name = "Tags"
      url = "/tags/"
      title = ""
      weight = 2
    [[languages.en.menu.main]]
      identifier = "categories"
      pre = ""
      name = "Categories"
      url = "/categories/"
      title = ""
      weight = 3
    [[languages.en.menu.main]]
      identifier = "about"
      pre = ""
      name = "About"
      url = "/about/"
      title = ""
      weight = 4

  [languages.zh-CN]
    weight = 2
    title = "我的全新 Hugo 网站"
    languageCode = "zh-CN"
    languageName = "简体中文"
    # whether to include Chinese/Japanese/Korean
    hasCJKLanguage = true
    [[languages.zh-CN.menu.main]]
      identifier = "posts"
      pre = ""
      name = "文章"
      url = "/posts/"
      title = ""
      weight = 1
    [[languages.zh-CN.menu.main]]
      identifier = "tags"
      pre = ""
      name = "标签"
      url = "/tags/"
      title = ""
      weight = 2
    [[languages.zh-CN.menu.main]]
      identifier = "categories"
      pre = ""
      name = "分类"
      url = "/categories/"
      title = ""
      weight = 3
    [[languages.zh-CN.menu.main]]
      identifier = "about"
      pre = ""
      name = "关于"
      url = "/about/"
      title = ""
      weight = 4

  [languages.fr]
    weight = 3
    title = "Mon nouveau site Hugo"
    languageCode = "fr"
    languageName = "Français"
    [[languages.fr.menu.main]]
      identifier = "posts"
      pre = ""
      name = "Postes"
      url = "/posts/"
      title = ""
      weight = 1
    [[languages.fr.menu.main]]
      identifier = "tags"
      pre = ""
      name = "Balises"
      url = "/tags/"
      title = ""
      weight = 2
    [[languages.fr.menu.main]]
      identifier = "categories"
      name = "Catégories"
      pre = ""
      url = "/categories/"
      title = ""
      weight = 3
    [[languages.fr.menu.main]]
      identifier = "about"
      pre = ""
      name = "À propos"
      url = "/about/"
      title = ""
      weight = 4
```

Then, for each new page, append the language code to the file name.

Single file `my-page.md` is split in three files:

* in English: `my-page.en.md`
* in Chinese: `my-page.zh-cn.md`
* in French: `my-page.fr.md`

{{< admonition >}}
Be aware that only translated pages are displayed in menu. It’s not replaced with default language content.
{{< /admonition >}}

{{< admonition tip >}}
Use [Front Matter parameter](https://gohugo.io/content-management/multilingual/#translate-your-content) to translate urls too.
{{< /admonition >}}

### 4.2 Overwrite Translation Strings

Translations strings are used for common default values used in the theme. Translations are available in **English**, **Chinese** and **French**, but you may use another language or want to override default values.

To override these values, create a new file in your local i18n folder `i18n/<languageCode>.toml` and inspire yourself from `themes/LoveIt/i18n/en.toml`.

By the way, as these translations could be used by other people, please take the time to propose a translation by [making a PR](https://github.com/dillonzq/LoveIt/pulls) to the theme!