just-the-docs/just-the-docs
Just The Docs
Just the Docs is a Jekyll theme designed for building documentation sites that are hosted on GitHub Pages. It provides a responsive, mobile-friendly layout with built-in search, hierarchical navigation, and extensive customization through overridable SCSS variables, Liquid includes, and page layouts.
The theme distinguishes itself through a file-based navigation hierarchy that automatically generates multi-level collapsible menus from directory structures and front matter, combined with client-side full-text search that indexes page content at build time. It includes automated deployment via GitHub Actions, supports light and dark color schemes, and offers granular control over page ordering, breadcrumb trails, child page lists, and table of contents generation from headings.
Additional capabilities include custom page headers and footers, auxiliary external links, back-to-top links, minimal layouts without sidebars, and the ability to exclude specific pages or collections from navigation or search results. The theme also supports named collections for organizing content into separate navigation sections and provides fallback navigation guidance for missing pages.
Features
- Documentation Site Generators - Creates a responsive documentation website with built-in search, customizable layout, and easy GitHub Pages hosting.
- Jekyll Theme Customizations - Provides overridable SCSS variables, includes, and layouts for extensive visual and structural customization.
- Collapsible Navigation Sidebars - Shows a collapsible navigation sidebar on wide screens and hides it behind a toggle on narrow screens.
- Jekyll Hierarchical Navigation Themes - Organizes pages into multi-level collapsible navigation with breadcrumb trails and child page lists.
- Multi-Level Menus - Structures site pages into a hierarchical navigation of unlimited depth using parent and ancestor titles.
- Collection-Based Page Groupings - Groups pages into separate navigation sections using named collections with ordered page lists.
- Full Text Search - Indexes page text at build time and returns matching results as the user types in a search box.
- Documentation Search - Indexes page content and returns matching results as users type in a search box.
- Document Structure Navigators - Provides a hierarchical menu with collapsible sections for browsing the documentation tree.
- GitHub Pages Deployments - Automates site building and publishing to GitHub Pages through a configured CI/CD workflow.
- Page Hierarchies - Structures pages into parent-child relationships using directories and front matter.
- Jekyll Theme Integrations - Renders documentation sites by combining Liquid templates with SCSS preprocessing through Jekyll's build pipeline.
- GitHub Pages - Provides a Jekyll theme optimized for hosting documentation on GitHub Pages with automatic deployment.
- Jekyll - Provides a modern, responsive Jekyll theme for building documentation sites with built-in search.
- Responsive - Provides a mobile-friendly theme that adapts sidebar navigation and content layout across screen sizes.
- Navigation Hierarchies - Organizes pages into a multi-level tree structure using directory paths and front matter.
- Breadcrumb Navigations - Generates breadcrumb trails from the page hierarchy to show the user's current location.
- Breadcrumbs - Shows a trail of parent pages on every page to indicate the user's location.
- Navigation Item Ordering - Controls the display order of navigation items via a numeric field in page front matter.
- Include Overrides - Replaces any of the theme's Jekyll include files with custom content by placing a copy in the site's includes directory.
- Client-Side Indexing - Indexes page text into a JSON file at build time for client-side fuzzy search.
- Markdown Anchor Navigators - Creates anchor links to section headings within a page and includes a back-to-top link for long documents.
- Table of Contents - Generates an in-page list of section headings for quick navigation.
- Collapsible - Wraps the table of contents in a collapsible element for expand/collapse on demand.
- Child Page Listings - Generates a table of contents of sub-pages for the current section.
- Minimal Content-Focused Themes - Renders a page with only its content area, omitting sidebars and navigation chrome for focused reading.
- Named Collections for Navigation - Groups documentation pages into named collections that appear as separate categories in the main navigation sidebar.
- Theme Configuration Overrides - Defines custom SCSS variables and functions in a setup file to modify theme behavior before CSS is generated.
- Page Orderings - Assigns numeric or string values to pages to control their display order in navigation.
- Navigation Link Injection - Adds external URLs to the navigation sidebar, placing them after internal pages and before collections.
- Color Schemes - Creates a new color scheme by overriding theme variables in a SCSS file, optionally based on an existing scheme.
- SCSS Variable Overrides - Defines color schemes and layout styles through cascading SCSS variables that override theme defaults.
- In-Page Navigation Tools - Generates tables of contents, breadcrumb trails, and back-to-top links for long documents.
- UI Element Visibility Toggles - Shows or hides a page's child links when a user clicks the expander icon in the navigation sidebar.
- Responsive Grid Layouts - Implements a collapsible sidebar and content area using CSS media queries and grid properties.
- Minimal Layouts Without - Renders a page with only the main content area, removing the sidebar and table of contents.
- Theme Style Customizations - Overrides the theme's CSS by placing custom styles in a dedicated SCSS file.
- CSS Variable Override Themes - Overrides theme variables, color schemes, and CSS to match brand guidelines.
- Template Overrides - Allows users to replace theme includes by placing custom files in the site's includes directory.
- Table of Contents Generators - Creates in-page anchor link lists from heading elements using Kramdown's built-in toc method.
- Child Page Table of Contents - Generates a list of child-page links below the main content for deeper navigation.
