---
layout: page
title: Using Linus
permalink: /about/
---

Linus is a minimal blog theme for Jekyll. Supports link posts, categories, tags, archives (using [jekyll-archives](https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll-arcihves)) and dark mode out of the box.
## Installation

Add this line to your Jekyll site's `Gemfile`:

```ruby
gem "linus"
```

And add this line to your Jekyll site's `_config.yml`:

```yaml
theme: linus
```

Then execute:

    $ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

    $ gem install linus

## Usage

### Layouts

| Layout | Purpose |
|---|---|
| `default` | Base layout — full HTML document, loads CSS, renders header and footer |
| `blog` | Blog index listing with pagination; also used for date, tag, and category archives |
| `post` | Single post view |
| `page` | Simple content page |

### Writing posts

Create files in `_posts/` with this front matter:

```yaml
---
layout: post
title: "My Post Title"
date: 2026-01-01
category: Notes
author: arthur
tags:
  - some tag
---
```

**Link posts**: you can have link posts by setting a `post.source` front-matter on your post. If the title is left empty (`""`), Jekyll will try to fetch the link metadata and render the link title as your post title.

```yaml
---
layout: post
title: ""
source: "https://example.com/article"
category: Links
---
```

### Authors

Authors follow the same approach as [jekyll-feed](https://github.com/jekyll-feed) and [jekyll-archives](https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll-archives). You can have an author object set in a post, or in the site `_config.yml`, or in a `authors.yml` data file.

In a post:

```yaml
---
layout: post
title: My awesome first post
author:
  name: Author Name
  uri: https://example.com
  picture: /path/to/author-picture.jpg
---
```

In your `_config.yml`:

```yaml
author:
  name: Author Name
  uri: https://example.com
  picture: /path/to/author-picture.jpg
```

You can also define authors in `_data/authors.yml`:

```yaml
author_name:
  name: Author Name
  uri: https://example.com
  picture: /path/to/author-picture.jpg
```

Reference them in post front matter with the `author` key:

```yaml
author: author_name
```

### Navigation menus

```yaml
main_menu:
  title: Navigate
  items:
    - url: "/about"
      label: About

footer_menu:
  title: Follow
  items:
    - label: RSS
      url: /feed.xml
      rel: alternate
    - label: External Site
      url: https://example.com
      rel: me
      external: true
```

Set `external: true` on any item to open it in a new tab.

### Translations

Override UI strings for archive headings and pagination:

```yaml
translations:
  byline: "By"
  archive_date_title: "Archives from %date"
  archive_tag_title: "Posts tagged with %tag"
  archive_category_title: "Posts filed under %category"
  blog_pagination_title: "Blog pagination"
  blog_pagination_prev_page: "Previous page"
  blog_pagination_next_page: "Next page"
```

### Further options

Linus uses the following Jekyll plugins, which you can set up as you please. Refer to the plugins docs to learn how to change the way your site will handle pagination, archiving, feeds and SEO tags:

- [jekyll-pagination](https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll-pagination)
- [jekyll-archives](https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll-archives)
- [jekyll-seo-tag](https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll-seo-tag)
- [jekyll-sitemap](https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll-sitemap)
- [jekyll-feed](https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll-feed)
- [jekyll-json-feed](https://github.com/lildude/jekyll-json-feed)

## Customization

### Date formats

Customize how dates are displayed using strftime strings:

```yaml
date_formats:
  day: "%b %d, '%y"
  month: "%b, '%y"
  year: "%Y"
```

### Custom styles

Override or extend the theme's CSS by creating `assets/css/theme.css` in your site. This file is loaded last, after all theme styles. Use it to redefine CSS custom properties or add new rules:

```css
:root {
  --font-body: Georgia, serif;
  --color-accent: tomato;
}
```

#### Category colors

Assign a background color to each category pill:

```yaml
category_colors:
  - name: Links
    color: "#f0e68c"
  - name: Notes
    color: "#fa8072"
```

### Custom fonts

Create `assets/css/fonts.css` in your site to load your own web fonts:

```css
@font-face {
  font-family: 'My Font';
  font-weight: 400;
  src: url('/assets/fonts/myfont.woff2') format('woff2');
}
```

Then reference it in `theme.css`:

```css
:root {
  --font-body: 'My Font', sans-serif;
}
```

## Custom includes

Linus offers three custom includes to add markup to different parts of your website:

- `head.html`: right before the closing `</head>` tag.
- `below-post.html`: after the post footer in post pages.
- `end.html`: right before the closing `</body>` tag.

## Development

To set up your environment to develop this theme, run `bundle install`.

The repository is also a working Jekyll site for local development. To preview the theme, run `bundle exec jekyll serve` and open your browser at `http://localhost:4000`. As you modify theme files, the site regenerates automatically.

Posts in `_posts/` and `index.html` exist only for local testing and are not included in the published gem.

## License

The theme is available as open source under the terms of the [MIT License](https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT).