Steve's No-Good-Very-Bad Jekyll Theme (NGVB) is a custom Jekyll theme by Steve Miller for personal and academic websites, built by merging Joel Glovier's jekyll-new starter with Alex King's Favepersonal WordPress theme. It produces a static site with a CV page, an about page, and data-driven navigation.
What is Steve's NGVB Theme?
The theme is a Jekyll static-site template created by Steve Miller for his personal site at svmiller.github.io. It takes Markdown content and YAML configuration and outputs a static website. The theme is a derivative of two open-source themes: jekyll-new and Favepersonal. It includes example content in cv.md and about.md that demonstrate the custom includes.
Key Features
- PDF embedding — The embedpdf.html include uses Google Docs to embed PDF files hosted on Dropbox, as shown in cv.md.
- Enhanced images — The image.html include provides fancier images than standard Markdown, with an example in about.md.
- Data-driven navigation — Navigation is configured through menu.yml in the _data directory, with nav.html and a modified header.html in _includes.
- Custom Clemson colors — css/main.scss defines $clemson-orange and $clemson-purple.
- Mobile support — The layout supports mobile devices, though the author notes that some white-spacing could be improved.
- CSS and Sass directories — Functional but cluttered, allowing for custom styles.
- Familiar Jekyll structure — Based on jekyll-new, so it follows common Jekyll conventions.
Who is it for?
Academics and personal site owners who want a Jekyll theme with a CV page, an about page, and easy PDF embedding. Clemson University affiliates may appreciate the custom orange and purple colors. Jekyll developers can use it as a base theme and adapt the includes for their own sites.
Use cases
- Academic CVs — Embed a Dropbox-hosted PDF CV on your site using the embedpdf.html include.
- Personal websites — Create a personal site with an about page and custom navigation defined in menu.yml.
- Jekyll theming — Use image.html to display images with more styling options than standard Markdown provides.
