Dark Poole

Dark Poole is a permanent dark theme for the Poole Jekyll blog theme by Mark Otto, created to keep a site dark regardless of the visitor's system preference. Built on Jekyll's built-in SCSS compiler, the theme takes a standard Poole installation and applies a darker color scheme, a customizable navbar, a 20px base font size, and removed tagline. It is open-sourced under the MIT license and distributed as a GitHub repository with a master branch for development and a gh-pages branch for the hosted demo.

What is Dark Poole?

Dark Poole is a drop-in replacement theme for Poole, the Jekyll-based blog theme created by Mark Otto. It changes Poole's styling to a permanent dark palette, meaning the site always displays dark colors and never switches based on a user's OS or browser preference. The theme works with Jekyll's built-in Sass pipeline: source files are stored in _sass/, included in styles.scss, and compiled into styles.css when the site builds. The project is maintained by Mark Otto and is distributed under the MIT license.

Key Features

• Permanent dark mode — Unlike stock Poole, which uses CSS media queries to toggle between light and dark, Dark Poole stays dark in all situations, giving a consistent look to every visitor.
• Customizable navbar — The navbar is defined in _config.yml with a nav list of title and url pairs; the order in the list is preserved on the rendered site.
• Larger base font size — The default font size is increased to 20px from Poole's original size, making body text more readable.
• No tagline in the navbar — The tagline that appears in Poole's navbar was removed for a cleaner header.
• Jekyll-native SCSS compilation — Sass files live in _sass/, get pulled into styles.scss, and are compiled by Jekyll, so no extra build tools are required.
• GitHub Pages deployment path — The README documents forking the repo, switching to gh-pages, setting a custom domain in CNAME, and configuring url and baseurl in _config.yml.
• Pagination instructions for subpath sites — The documentation explains how to set paginate_path and adjust links in archive.md and index.html when the site is hosted under a base URL.
• Minimal deviation from Poole — The theme intentionally stays as close as possible to the original Poole codebase, which eases migration and maintenance.

Who is it for?

Jekyll bloggers who want a dark-themed site without writing custom CSS can use Dark Poole as a direct replacement for the default Poole layout. Developers who already run a Poole-based blog can follow the documented upgrade and deployment steps to switch to a permanent dark appearance. GitHub Pages users benefit from the included gh-pages branch and configuration notes for custom domains and project subpaths.

What can you do with Dark Poole?

• Bloggers: Launch a personal or technical blog with a dark theme and publish posts through Jekyll's standard Markdown workflow.
• Developers: Customize the navbar by editing _config.yml and serve the site locally with bundle exec jekyll serve for instant preview at localhost:4000.
• Open-source authors: Host project documentation or a changelog on GitHub Pages using the documented baseurl and pagination setup to keep links working under a subpath.

How does Dark Poole work?

To use the theme, you install Jekyll and its dependencies (jekyll, jekyll-gist, jekyll-sitemap, jekyll-seo-tag), install bundler, and run bundle exec jekyll serve to preview the site locally. For production, the README recommends forking the repository, switching to the gh-pages branch, and setting url and baseurl in _config.yml (and a CNAME file if a custom domain is used). Pagination on subpath sites requires adding a paginate_path to the config and small link adjustments in archive.md and index.html.

FAQ

Is Dark Poole free?

Yes, Dark Poole is open-sourced under the MIT license, so you can use, modify, and redistribute it freely.

Does Dark Poole respect the user's dark mode preference?

No. Dark Poole is a permanent dark theme. Unlike the default Poole theme, which uses CSS media queries to follow the user's system preference, Dark Poole always renders dark colors.

How do I customize the navbar?

Edit the nav list in _config.yml. Each item needs a title and a url, and the order of the list controls the order of the navbar links on the page.

How do I deploy Dark Poole to GitHub Pages?

Fork the repo and switch to the gh-pages branch. If you have a custom domain, edit CNAME. If not, set the url in _config.yml to your GitHub Pages URL, and set baseurl to your repository name if you are hosting under a project path.

What changed from the original Poole theme?

Dark Poole made three main changes: it made the theme permanently dark, added a customizable navbar in _config.yml, and set the default font size to 20px. It also removed the tagline from the navbar to keep the header cleaner.