Arumai Jekyll Theme

Arumai (meaning "wonderful" or "excellent" in Tamil) is a minimalist, content-focused Jekyll theme. It integrates Bootstrap 5 for a responsive layout and Prism.js for beautiful syntax highlighting.

Designed for developers and thinkers, Arumai stays out of the way, letting your words and code shine.

Features

  • Minimalist Aesthetics: Clean design for maximum readability.
  • Bootstrap 5: Modern, responsive grid system.
  • Prism.js: Built-in syntax highlighting with support for multiple themes.
  • Category Segregation: Automatically groups posts into "Politics" and "Tech" (or custom categories).
  • Umami Analytics: Easy, privacy-focused tracking integration.
  • PhotoSwipe 5 Integration: Automatic lightbox functionality for all blog images.
  • Dark / Light Mode: Built-in theme toggle with OS-level auto-detection and persistent user preference.

Installation

Add this line to your Jekyll site's Gemfile:

gem "jekkyl-arumai"

And add this line to your Jekyll site's _config.yml:

theme: jekkyl-arumai

And then execute:

$ bundle install

Usage & Customization

1. Categories

Arumai is designed to segregate posts. Use the following in your post's front matter:

categories: [tech]
# or
categories: [politics]

2. Analytics (Umami)

To track your visitors using Umami, simply add your website ID to your _config.yml:

umami:
  id: "your-website-id-here"

3. Syntax Highlighting (Prism)

You can customize the Prism theme in your _config.yml:

prisma:
  theme_name: "okaidia"

Supported themes: twilight, dark, funky, okaidia, coy, solarizedlight, tomorrow.

4. Image Lightbox (PhotoSwipe)

Arumai automatically integrates PhotoSwipe 5. Any image you add to your posts using standard Markdown will automatically become clickable, opening in a high-performance, responsive lightbox with zoom and swipe support. No extra configuration is required.

5. Home Page Image & Link

Customize your home page image and its link globally in your _config.yml:

author_image: "https://your-image-url.com/image.jpg"
author_url: "https://your-profile-or-social-link.com"

Alternatively, you can override them for a specific page via front matter (e.g., in index.md):

layout: home
image_url: "https://your-image-url.com/image.jpg"
author_url: "https://your-profile-or-social-link.com"

6. Dark / Light Mode

Arumai ships with an automatic dark / light mode toggle. By default it respects the visitor's operating system preference (prefers-color-scheme), and the toggle button in the navbar lets visitors switch manually. The chosen mode is persisted in localStorage and applied instantly on every page load.

No configuration is required. To force a specific default for a page, you can set the data-theme attribute on the <html> element; otherwise the theme automatically follows the OS setting until the user overrides it.

7. RSS Feed

To enable RSS feeds, ensure jekyll-feed is added to your plugins in _config.yml:

plugins:
  - jekyll-feed

Screenshots

Home Page Posts List

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitLab at https://gitlab.com/sathias/jekkyl-arumai.

License

The theme is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.