derickwarshaw / gatsby-styled-blog-starter

A starter for Gatsby

This project is discontinued, but hey there is a successor. Take a look at gatsby-starter-personal-blog

StyledBlog starter for Gatsby

DEMO website

This is a starter/theme for Gatsby.

Description

The goal is to make a theme using Gatsby which behaves like a native app.

No webfonts

StyledBlog uses no webfonts, instead system-fonts are used. So the typography looks a litle different on different devices. This is the whole font setting /src/styles/global.js

body {
    font-family: "-apple-system", "BlinkMacSystemFont", "Segoe UI", "Roboto","Oxygen", "Ubuntu", "Cantarell", "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", "sans-serif";
  }

The inspiration not to use webfonts came from reactjs.org. But, if you need webfonts, it's easy to configure, as shown in Customization section below.

styled-components

StyledBlog uses styled-components and gatsby-plugin-styled-components. Three important files to notice: /src/styles/global.js with global styles, /src/styles/colors.js with color palette variables and /src/styles/theme.js with a styled-component theme.

Setup

If you are completely new to Gatsby, start with one of its official blog starters. If you have already went through with the tutorials install the starter using gatsby new command.

gatsby new [NEW_SITE_DIRECTORY_FOR_YOUR_BLOG] https://github.com/greglobinski/gatsby-styled-blog-starter.git

Customization

Website data

Edit \src\utils\siteConfig.js

module.exports = {
  pathPrefix: "/",
  siteTitle: "Gatsby StyledBlog starter",
  siteLongTitle: "Gatsby StyledBlog Theme/Starter",
  siteUrl: "https://gsbs.greglobinski.com",
  siteLanguage: "en",
  siteLogo: "/logos/logo-1024.png",
  siteDescription: "This is a starter/theme for GatsbyJS",
  // manifest.json
  manifestName: "StyledBlog Gatsby starter",
  manifestShortName: "StyledBlog",
  manifestStartUrl: "/",
  manifestBackgroundColor: colors.first,
  manifestThemeColor: colors.firstLight,
  manifestDisplay: "standalone",
  // Author note
  authorName: "Mr. Gatsby",
  authorDescription: `Proin ornare ligula eu tellus tempus elementum. Aenean bibendum iaculis mi, nec blandit lacus interdum vitae. Vestibulum non nibh risus, a scelerisque purus. `,
  // texts
  copyright:
    "This is the place for a copyrigh note - editable through config object"
};

Color palette

Edit the \src\styles\colors.js file to customize the color palette.

module.exports = {
  first: "#7F5D80",
  firstLight: "#CFC0CF",
  firstSuperLight: "#F4F0F4",
  firstDark: "#563E57",
  accent: "#FF6633",
  bright: "#ffffff",
  light: "#f3f3f3",
  middle: "#666666",
  dark: "#333333",
  superDark: "#111111"
};

Theme

Edit the \src\styles\theme.js file to customize colors of element.

const colors = require("./colors");

const theme = {
  navigator: {
    colors: {
      title: colors.firstSuperLight,
      subTitle: colors.bright,
      scrollTrack: colors.first,
      scrollThumb: colors.firstDark,
      linkHover: colors.bright,
      header: colors.firstSuperLight,
      asideItemActiveBorder: colors.accent
    },
    sizes: {
      asideWidth: "19em",
      maxWidth: "56em"
    },
    backgrounds: {
      wrapper: colors.first,
      asideItemActive: colors.firstDark
    }
  },
  post: {
    colors: {
      author: colors.middle,
      authorBorder: colors.firstLight,
      bold: colors.middle,
      blockquoteFrame: colors.light,
      copyright: colors.middle,
      link: colors.first,
      linkHover: colors.firstLight,
      meta: colors.middle,
      metaBorder: colors.first,
      text: colors.dark,
      title: colors.middle,
      subTitle: colors.superDark
    },
    backgrounds: {
      wrapper: colors.bright,
      meta: colors.light
    },
    sizes: {
      maxWidth: "50em"
    }
  },
  bottomBar: {
    colors: {
      link: colors.bright,
      icon: colors.firstSuperLight
    },
    backgrounds: {
      wrapper: colors.first,
      icon: colors.firstDark
    },
    sizes: {
      height: 44 //pixels
    }
  },
  topBar: {
    colors: {
      link: colors.bright,
      linkPost: colors.first
    },
    backgrounds: {
      wrapper: colors.firstLight,
      wrapperPost: colors.bright,
      icon: colors.accent
    },
    sizes: {
      height: 44 //pixels
    }
  },
  info: {
    colors: {
      text: colors.firstDark,
      link: colors.firstDark,
      linkHover: colors.first,
      btn: colors.bright
    },
    backgrounds: {
      wrapper: colors.firstLight,
      btn: colors.accent
    },
    sizes: {
      maxWidth: "40em"
    }
  },
  mediaQueryTresholds: {
    XL: "65em",
    L: "49em",
    M: "37em",
    S: "28em",
    XS: "21em"
  }
};

Webfonts

As mentioned StyledBlog does not use webfonts. If you need them, the simplest way is to use Google Fonts is through Typography.js. But instead installing Typography.js directly use gatsby-plugin-typography.

Remember to update body { font-family: ....} in the /src/styles/global.js file. Also remove import "normalize.css"; from /src/layouts/index.js, since Typography comes with its own normalize styles.

Posts

Blog content is located in /content/posts/ directory, in markdown files.

Status

I like the approach described in the saying "Do it, then do it right and then do it even better." So...

What was done

• I started with gatsby-starter-hello-world.

• Installed plugins:

gatsby-image, gatsby-plugin-catch-links,
gatsby-plugin-manifest, gatsby-plugin-netlify, gatsby-plugin-offline,
gatsby-plugin-react-helmet, gatsby-plugin-sharp,
gatsby-plugin-styled-components, gatsby-plugin-typography,
gatsby-remark-copy-linked-files, gatsby-remark-images, gatsby-remark-prismjs,
gatsby-remark-responsive-ifram, gatsby-remark-smartypants,
gatsby-source-filesystem, gatsby-transformer-remark, gatsby-transformer-sharp
normalize.css, styled-components

• Created four React components: Navigator, TopBar, BottomBar and Info. There are also other components, but they are only for code organizing.

What need to be done to 'Do it right'

• Add redux (react-redux) to manage state of interface (done)
• Types (prop-types/?/flow)
• Navigator virtualization
• Refactor animations for mobile
• Fix and install what-input
• Categories
• SEO component
• Disqus Comments
• ...

What can be done to "make it even better"

• Searching
• PWA push notifications (?)
• Localstorage for user history
• ...

Blogs built with the starter

• www.userexperiencenotes.com

pr to add your blog

Updates

If you are interested in updates follow me at @greglobinski.