Duckling

Duckquill is an minimal and feature-rich Zola theme that has the purpose of greatly simplifying the process of rolling up your project website. It aims to provide all the necessary options for comfortable writing, while keeping the balance of simplicity.

It is based on the Duckquill theme for blogs.

Some of the features Duckling has to offer:

Installation

First, if you already have Git setup, add this theme as a submodule:

git submodule init
git submodule add https://git.aparoksha.dev/david-swift/duckling themes/duckling

Otherwise, simply clone it to your themes directory:

git clone https://git.aparoksha.dev/david-swift/duckling themes/duckling

Important

It is highly recommended to switch from the main branch to the latest release:

cd themes/duckling
git checkout tags/v0.1.0

Then, enable it in your config.toml:

theme = "duckling"

To update the theme, simply switch to a new tag:

git submodule update --remote --merge
cd themes/duckling
git checkout tags/v0.1.0

Important

Check the changelog for all versions after the one you are using; there may be breaking changes that require manual involvement.

Options

Duckling offers some configuration options to make it fit you better; most options have pretty descriptive comments, so it should be easy to understand what they do.

Front Matter

Duckling has some front matter variables that you can use by setting them in the [extra] section:

Global

Configuration variables from config.toml that can be set/overriden per page/section:

Other variables:

Blog Post Specific

In [extra.comments] section:

Localization

Duckling ships with a localization system based on one used in tabi, it’s very easy to use and quite flexible at the same time.

To add a translation, simply create a file in your site’s i18n directory called LANG_CODE.toml, e.g fr.toml. The language code should be either ISO 639-1 or BCP 47.

Inside that file, copy-paste one of the existing translations from Duckling and adapt it to your needs. You can also check tabi translation files for reference.

Additionally to translating Duckling, you can also override the English stings by copy-pasting en.toml from Duckling to the i18n directory of your website and adjusting the values to your liking.

Custom Styles

To add your own or override existing styles, create a custom style and add it in the config.toml:

[extra]
styles = [
  "YOUR_STYLE.css",
  "ALSO_YOUR_STYLE.css"
]

Additional styles are expected it to be in the static directory. If you are using Sass they will be compiled there by default.

If for some reason overridden style is not respected, try using !important (don’t use it unless needed). You can import styles from Duckling using:

@use "../themes/duckling/sass/NEEDED_FILE.scss";

You can also load styles per page/section by setting them inside page’s front matter:

[extra]
styles = [
  "YOUR_PAGE_STYLE.css"
]

Accent Color

Duckling respects chosen accent color everywhere. To use your own, simply change it in config.toml:

[extra]
accent_color = "#3584e4"

Additionally, you can set a separate color for dark mode:

[extra]
accent_color_dark = "#ff7800"

Favicon

Files named favicon.png and apple-touch-icon.png are used as favicon and Apple Touch Icon respectively. For animated favicon you can use APNG with the png file extension.

In the Wild

Thanks To