Hexo Theme Landscape

Hexo Theme Landscape is the official default blog theme for Hexo, a Node.js static site generator, and it turns Markdown posts into a fast, static blog with a customizable sidebar and built-in photo lightbox.

What is Hexo Theme Landscape?

Hexo Theme Landscape is an open-source theme maintained by the Hexo team under the hexojs GitHub organization. It takes Markdown files written in Hexo and generates a static website with a blog list, category and tag pages, archive pages, and a sidebar. The theme ships with every new Hexo installation via hexo init and is available on npm as hexo-theme-landscape. On GitHub it has 337 stars, and styling is done with Stylus while content uses Markdown.

Key Features

• FancyBox photo lightbox — Integrates the Fancybox library so images in posts open in an overlay; you can add images with standard Markdown syntax or the fancybox tag plugin, which supports thumbnail URLs and captions.
• Sidebar with five built-in widgets — Includes category, tag, tagcloud, archives, and recent_posts widgets, all enabled by default; the sidebar setting lets you place the sidebar on the left, right, or bottom of the page.
• Configurable header links — Add icon links to GitHub, Twitter, Telegram, or any other URL through the links option in the theme config.
• RSS integration — Works with the hexo-generator-feed plugin to generate an RSS feed for your posts.
• Alternate theme configuration — To avoid losing changes during upgrades, copy the theme's _config.yml to _config.landscape.yml in your blog's root directory; this is the recommended way to customize settings.
• Flexible installation and updates — Install with npm i hexo-theme-landscape or clone the repository into themes/landscape; update with npm install hexo-theme-landscape@latest or git pull.

Who is it for?

• New Hexo users — The default theme that appears when you run hexo init, providing a working blog with zero configuration.
• Photographers and visual creators — The built-in FancyBox lightbox makes it easy to present image galleries with captions and zoomable viewing.
• Developers who want a minimal blog — The clean, text-focused layout and simple widget structure keep the site lightweight and quick to load.

What can you do with it?

• Publish a personal blog — Write posts in Markdown, organize them with categories and tags, and let Landscape render the archive and recent-posts sidebar widgets automatically.
• Showcase a portfolio — Use the fancybox tag plugin to embed images with thumbnails and captions, so viewers can click through a lightbox.
• Create a project or community site — Add social links in the header and enable RSS with hexo-generator-feed to let followers subscribe to updates.

FAQ

Is Hexo Theme Landscape free?

Yes, it is open source under the Hexo organization. You can install and use it without paying a license fee, and you can modify the source code for your own projects.

How do I set the theme in Hexo?

Set the theme value in your blog's _config.yml to landscape. If the theme is installed via npm, it is loaded from node_modules/hexo-theme-landscape; otherwise it sits in the themes/landscape directory.

Why should I use _config.landscape.yml instead of editing the theme's config?

Directly editing _config.yml inside the theme is risky because upgrades can overwrite your changes. Copying that file to your blog root as _config.landscape.yml keeps your settings separate and persistent across theme updates.

What widgets are available in the sidebar?

Landscape ships with five widgets: category, tag, tagcloud, archives, and recent_posts. They are all enabled by default, and you can alter them or disable them in the widget setting of the theme configuration.

Can I add a search function?

The theme does not mention a built-in search widget. You would need to add a third-party Hexo search plugin or a client-side search integration yourself.