Hexo Theme Matery

Hexo Theme Matery is a Material Design-based Hexo blog theme that transforms a standard Hexo site into a feature-rich blog with a dynamic banner, carousel posts, and a waterflow post list, all configurable from a single theme folder.

What is Hexo Theme Matery?

Hexo Theme Matery is a blog theme for the Hexo static site generator, created by blinkfox. It takes your Hexo project's Markdown posts and generates a Material Design-styled responsive blog with a changing daily banner, carousel featured posts, and a masonry-style post list. The theme requires Hexo 5.0.0 or above and is distributed as a folder that you copy into your project's themes directory.

Key Features

• Material Design and responsive layout — The theme follows Google's Material Design guidelines and displays well on desktop, tablet, and mobile screens.
• Dynamic homepage banner and carousel — The banner image switches every day using 7 images, and posts with cover: true in front-matter appear in a homepage carousel.
• Waterflow post list — Blog posts are laid out in a masonry-style waterflow; if a post lacks a featured image, the theme picks one of 24 built-in images based on the post title's hash.
• Special archive, tags, and categories pages — The archive page uses a timeline, the tags page renders a word cloud, and the categories page displays a radar chart.
• Multiple comment systems — Supports Gitalk, Gitment, Valine, and Disqus, with Gitalk recommended by the author; selection is made in the theme's _config.yml.
• Post enhancements — Includes post topping, per-post password protection (SHA256-encrypted password in front-matter), MathJax formula support, TOC, copy copyright notice, reward buttons, and reprint policy options.
• Analytics and statistics — Integrates Busuanzi page views, Google Analytics, and optional post word counts and reading time via the hexo-wordcount plugin.
• Media and chat integrations — Can embed a music player (NetEase, Tencent, Kugou, Xiami, Baidu) and videos on the homepage, plus DaoVoice and Tidio online chat widgets.

Who is it for?

• Bloggers using Hexo who want a polished, feature-dense theme without hand-coding a front-end.
• Technical writers who need MathJax for formulas and PrismJS code highlighting in their posts.
• Developers who want to customize a theme's EJS templates and Stylus CSS to match their personal brand.
• Chinese-language bloggers — The theme includes a Chinese README, supports Chinese menus, and recommends setting language: zh-CN for Chinese sites.

What can you do with Hexo Theme Matery?

• Create a portfolio blog — The About page can showcase projects, skills, and a gallery, while the Friends page displays customizable links.
• Monetize or reward content — Enable post rewards and define per-post reprint policies (e.g., CC BY, no-reprint) in front-matter.
• Build a media-rich homepage — Configure a music playlist from NetEase Cloud Music by ID and embed videos directly on the homepage.
• Engage readers with chat — Integrate DaoVoice or Tidio online chat by adding your app ID or public key to the theme config.

How does Hexo Theme Matery work?

1. Download or git clone the theme into your Hexo project's themes folder.
2. Set theme: hexo-theme-matery in the root _config.yml, and create required pages (categories, tags, about, contact, friends, 404) with hexo new page and the corresponding front-matter.
3. Configure theme options in the theme's _config.yml (menu, music, comments, analytics), then run hexo clean && hexo g to generate the static site.

FAQ

What version of Hexo does hexo-theme-matery require?

The theme recommends Hexo 5.0.0 and above. It supports the PrismJS highlighting built into Hexo 5.0.0, so you should uninstall the older hexo-prism-plugin to avoid escape characters in code blocks.

Does hexo-theme-matery support MathJax?

Yes. Enable MathJax in the theme's _config.yml, then set mathjax: true in the front-matter of any post that needs formula rendering.

Can I password-protect individual posts?

Yes. Set a password value in the post's front-matter using a SHA256 hash, and activate the verifyPassword option in the theme config. Visitors will be asked for the password to read that post.

Which comment systems are supported?

Gitalk, Gitment, Valine, and Disqus are integrated. Gitalk is recommended by the theme author. You select one system in the theme's _config.yml.