Hydexo is a responsive blogging theme for the Hexo static site generator, forked from the Tranquilpeak theme with a new sliding sidebar and UI improvements.
What is Hydexo?
Hydexo is a visually polished theme that runs on Hexo 3.0.0 or later (Node v4 or later) and turns your Markdown posts, tags, categories, and archives into a full blog site. It is authored by Ashish Prajapati, who forked it from Louis Barranqueiro's hexo-theme-tranquilpeak. The theme handles layout, styling, and responsive behavior, so you only manage content through Hexo.
Key Features
- Sliding drawer sidebar — A configurable sidebar menu that slides in from the edge of the screen, replacing the static sidebar used in the original Tranquilpeak theme.
- Fully responsive design — The layout adapts to desktops, tablets, and phones; images and videos resize automatically inside post content.
- Tag, category, and archive pages — Automatically generated pages allow readers to browse posts by tag, category, or date archive.
- Open Graph support — Metadata for Facebook and other social platforms is generated from your post content to improve link sharing.
- Internationalization (i18n) — The theme includes support for multiple languages so blog content can be localized.
- Post-level enhancements — Each post can display reading time, a cover image, a table of contents, an image gallery, wide images, tabbed code blocks, highlighted text, and alert boxes.
- Code highlighting — GitHub-style code highlighting is included and customizable to other color schemes.
- Integrated services — Disqus, Duoshuo, Google Analytics, Baidu Analytics, Gravatar, Algolia, and Facebook Insights are supported through theme configuration.
Who is it for?
- Hexo bloggers — Developers and writers who already use Hexo can install Hydexo to get a designed blog without building a front-end.
- Tranquilpeak users — Anyone currently using Tranquilpeak can switch to this fork to get the sliding drawer and UI tweaks while keeping a similar visual style.
- Personal site owners — People self-hosting a blog on Node.js tools will find this theme integrates comments, analytics, and search services from one config file.
What can you do with Hydexo?
- Publish long-form posts: Write in Markdown and get automatic reading time, a cover image, and responsive media handling.
- Share code examples: Use tabbed code blocks and GitHub-style highlighting to present multiple code samples in one post.
- Localize your blog: Enable i18n to maintain content in several languages with a single theme.
How does Hydexo work?
Download the latest production release (hydexo-1.0.1.zip) and place it in your Hexo themes directory. Then follow the user documentation to configure the sidebar menu, integrated services, and writing options. The theme reads your existing Markdown content and renders it as static HTML when you build your Hexo site.
Pros and cons
- Pro: The sliding drawer makes navigation on mobile devices easier than a static sidebar.
- Pro: Supports a wide set of third-party services for comments, analytics, and search.
- Con: Documentation is still in progress, so users are directed to the original Tranquilpeak docs for full setup details.
Alternatives
- Tranquilpeak — The original theme by Louis Barranqueiro that Hydexo was forked from; it uses a static sidebar instead of the sliding drawer.
FAQ
Is Hydexo free?
Hydexo is available as a public GitHub repository with a direct download link for production use, indicating it is free to use and open source, although the README does not specify a license.
What Hexo version is required?
Hydexo requires Hexo 3.0.0 or later and Node v4 or later, as stated in the theme's compatibility notes.
How do I install Hydexo?
Download the hydexo-1.0.1.zip release, extract it into your Hexo themes folder, and then follow the user documentation to configure the theme's sidebar, services, and post features.
Where is the documentation?
The Hydexo documentation is still in progress. The README links to the original Tranquilpeak user documentation for setup and post-writing instructions.
