Simplicity

Simplicity is a minimal Hugo theme for blogs that converts Markdown content into a clean, readable static site with responsive images, lazy loading, and zero JavaScript or CSS frameworks. Created by eshlox and released under the MIT license, it runs on the Hugo static site generator and is installed by cloning the GitHub repository into a site's themes directory. The theme is demonstrated live on eshlox.net and eshlox.pl.

What is Simplicity?

Simplicity is a Hugo theme focused on clean typography and fast performance for personal blogs and content sites. It takes Markdown content organized with Hugo's standard folder structure — content/posts, content/categories, content/tags, and a media directory — and outputs a static HTML site with responsive images, lazy loading, and SEO metadata. The theme is maintained by eshlox and published under the MIT license.

Key Features

• Responsive images — the build process generates several image sizes (320px, 480px, 768px, and larger variants appear in the example site's resources folder) and displays the best one for the device.
• Lazy loading — integrates the LazyLoad library to load images only as they enter the viewport, speeding up page loads.
• No frameworks included — the theme ships without jQuery, CSS frameworks, or JavaScript frameworks, keeping the output lightweight.
• Media shortcodes — shortcodes for Google AdSense, images, Speaker Deck, video, Vimeo, and YouTube; the image shortcode supports full-width display, lightbox via baguetteBox.js, rounded corners, and disabling resizing.
• Syntax highlighting — uses Hugo's built-in Chroma with a native color theme and no extra configuration.
• SEO metadata — OpenGraph support, Schema Structured Data, and Twitter cards are included by default.
• Social icons — config-driven icons for email, Facebook, GitHub, Google+, LinkedIn, Messenger, Spotify, Stackoverflow, Telegram, and Twitter.
• Page extras — auto-hide/show header with headroom.js, a scroll progress bar, Disqus comments, category and tag archive pages, plus custom RSS and sitemap templates that exclude the media directory.

Who should use Simplicity?

Simplicity suits Hugo users who want a minimal blog theme without dependency bloat. Developers familiar with Hugo can copy config.toml from the exampleSite directory and adjust the social and analytics settings. Bloggers who publish code-heavy posts get native Chroma highlighting, and media-heavy publishers benefit from the built-in responsive image pipeline.

What can you do with Simplicity?

• Hugo bloggers: clone the repo into themes, copy config.toml from exampleSite, and publish Markdown posts with categories, tags, and Disqus comments.
• Photographers: store images in a content/media directory and insert responsive, lightbox-enabled images with the image shortcode.
• Technical writers: embed presentations and videos using the Speaker Deck, Vimeo, and YouTube shortcodes.
• Ad-supported sites: place the AdSense shortcode in any post and add a Google Analytics code to the config to track visitors.

How does Simplicity work?

The README's Getting Started guide has three steps: create a themes directory, run git clone https://github.com/eshlox/simplicity.git inside it, and copy config.toml from exampleSite to the site root. Custom favicons go in assets/src/images and must be named favicon.ico and apple-touch-icon.png. Development uses hugo server --source=exampleSite --themesDir=../.. after running cd assets && yarn install.

FAQ

Is Simplicity free?

Yes. The theme is released under the MIT license, which permits free use, modification, and redistribution, including in commercial projects.

What does Simplicity do?

It turns Markdown content into a static blog site with responsive, lazy-loaded images, Chroma syntax highlighting, SEO metadata, and optional Disqus comments, all without any CSS or JavaScript frameworks.

Which browsers are supported?

The README lists the latest Firefox, Chrome, and Safari on desktop and mobile, and notes that other browsers probably work but have not been tested.