minimal-mistakes/_posts/2016-09-21-gemified-theme-alpha.md

title	categories	tags
Gemified Theme Alpha Release	Jekyll	update

Jekyll themes distributed as Ruby gems are finally here!

If you're interested in testing out Minimal Mistakes as a gemified theme read on. There is a caveat though:

Support for all assets (not just _sass partials) was recently added to Jekyll core, but has yet to be rolled into GitHub Pages. Meaning you can't use Minimal Mistakes as a Ruby gem there just yet.

Fine with that? Great. Let's continue.

If you're migrating a site already using Minimal Mistakes and haven't customized any of the _includes, _layouts, or _sass partials this should be quick and painless.

Step 1: Remove _includes, _layouts, and _sass folders. You won't need this anymore as they're bundled in the theme. If you customized any of these files then leave them alone and remove any that you didn't.

Step 2: Update Gemfile

Remove gem "github-pages" or gem "jekyll" and replace with gem "jekyll", :git => "https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll.git" to install the latest version of Jekyll which reads assets from a theme.

You'll also need to add the pre-release Minimal Mistakes gem:

gem "minimal-mistakes-jekyll", :git => "https://github.com/mmistakes/minimal-mistakes.git", :branch => "feature/theme-gem"`

When finished your Gemfile should look something like this:

source "https://rubygems.org"

gem "jekyll", :git => "https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll.git"
gem "minimal-mistakes-jekyll", :git => "https://github.com/mmistakes/minimal-mistakes.git", :branch => "feature/theme-gem"

group :jekyll_plugins do
  # gem "jekyll-archives"
  gem "jekyll-paginate"
  gem "jekyll-sitemap"
  gem "jekyll-gist"
  gem "jekyll-feed"
  gem "jemoji"
end

Step 3: Run bundle install (or bundle update if you're updating an existing repo).

Step 4: Add gem: "minimal-mistakes-jekyll" to your _config.yml file. If you're migrating from an existing Minimal Mistakes site you shouldn't have to change anything else. If it's a new site consult then docs to properly config.

Please Note: Images headers, teasers, and galleries need full paths now specified in YAML Front Matter or in _config.yml. Instead of just image: filename.jpg you'll need to use the full path eg: image: assets/images/filename.jpg. The preferred location is now assets/images but can be placed elsewhere or external hosted. {: .notice--warning}

Step 5: If this is a new site be sure to add the following files to _data and customize as you see fit. There is currently no way of bundling them in with the theme, so be sure to consult the docs on how to properly use both.

• _data/ui-text.yml - UI text documentation
• _data/navigation.yml - navigation documentation

That's it! If all goes well running bundle exec jekyll serve should spin-up your site. If you encounter any bumps please file an issue on GitHub and make sure to indicate you're testing the pre-release Ruby gem version.

File an issue{: .btn .btn--info .btn--large}

Thanks!