Galada

Galada is a free, dark-colored Jekyll theme for personal blogs, built with a minimal responsive design and integrations for Disqus comments, Instagram feeds, and Google Analytics.

What is Galada?

Galada is an easy and simple Jekyll theme designed for personal blogs. It takes standard Jekyll markdown posts from the _posts directory and renders a 100% responsive, minimal blog with a dark color scheme. It is created by Artem Sheludko and is free under the MIT license. The theme runs on Jekyll, a static site generator, and is compatible with GitHub Pages.

Key Features

• Responsive and mobile-optimized — The theme is 100% responsive and optimized for mobile devices, with a clean minimal design.
• Valid HTML5 — The theme outputs valid HTML5 code.
• Post sharing — Includes social sharing buttons for blog posts.
• Subscription form — A subscription form is built in, though specifics like email service are not detailed.
• Disqus comments — Disqus comments are enabled; set your Disqus shortname in _config.yml to activate.
• Instagram feed — Using Instafeed.js, the theme can display up to 6 Instagram photos; you set userId and accessToken in js/common.js.
• Ionicons icons — Uses Ionicons for UI icons.
• Google Fonts — Includes the Nunito sans-serif font from Google Fonts.
• Built with Jekyll and SCSS — The theme is built on Jekyll with SCSS for styling, and also uses jQuery, FitVids.js, and Wait For Images.

Who is it for?

Galada is designed for personal bloggers who want a simple, dark-themed blog without extra clutter. It fits writers, developers, and creatives who publish regular posts and want a mobile-friendly presence.

What can you do with Galada?

• Personal bloggers: Publish markdown posts with tags and images, and share them via social buttons.
• Developers: Set up a Jekyll blog on GitHub Pages quickly, with a local workflow using bundle install and jekyll serve.
• Instagram users: Display up to 6 recent Instagram photos in the sidebar by configuring the Instafeed.js values.

How does Galada work?

To run locally, navigate to the theme directory and run bundle install to install dependencies, then jekyll serve or bundle exec jekyll serve. To create a post, add a markdown file in the _posts directory with front matter specifying layout, title, date, image, and tags. To customize, edit _config.yml for Disqus shortname, Google Analytics identifier, and to enable the Instagram feed.

FAQ

Is Galada free?

Yes, Galada is released under the MIT License, so you can use, modify, and redistribute it freely.

How do I set up Disqus comments?

Open _config.yml and change the disqus-identifier value to your Disqus shortname. You also need to register your website with Disqus.

How do I enable the Instagram feed?

Get your userId and accessToken from the URLs provided in the theme documentation, edit js/common.js to insert those values, and set instafeed: true in _config.yml.

How do I change the favicon?

The current favicon (favicon.ico) is in the theme root directory; simply replace it with your own favicon file.

How do I create a new post?

Create a new markdown file inside the _posts directory following Jekyll's recommended file structure, with front matter including layout: post, title, date, image, and tags. Add post images to the /img/ directory.