Extending the Theme

AsciiDocsy is designed to be customized without having to interfere with the core template, style, or script files.

The configuration system is elaborate, enabling control of most major features via YAML-formatted files. Toggling features on and off and defining settings should mostly entail modifications to files of meticulously organized parameters.

The rest of the customization strategy involves supplementing or replacing AsciiDocsy’s core files. You can add CSS or JavaScript, or you can override the existing templates or insert your own templates inside them using “hooks” embedded in the AsciiDocsy templates.

CSS

AsciiDocsy uses Sass and static CSS for style sourcing. You are welcome to add files of either type.

Use the _sass/_custom.scss file to take advantage of Bootstrap variables, mixins, and utilities.

Use the css/custom.css file to override any precedent set in the cascade.

Use the template extension hooks css_head and css_tail to add whole files to the beginning or end of the stylesheets link list.

JavaScript

While AsciiDocsy is a fully JAMstack theme, its use of JavaScript to overcome the limits of AsciiDoc and HTML is JAMstackish at the very least.

Bootstrap provides numerous elements that enhance the way we shape and place novel elements. However, jQuery (or another JS framework of your choice) is most helpful with post-render content enhancement and management.

When delivering HTML, JavaScript will almost always provide you with the final say.

As one example, AsciiDocsy uses JS-driven menus that dump into divs. The terms-list generated on topic pages that contain glossary terms is also generated this way.

Template Overrides

Since AsciiDocsy (post 0.3.0) is a gem-formatted theme, the core theme files are expressed at build time rather than being located in your workspace. Therefore, you may override any data file or template file by replacing it your local path.

The typical way to replace a file is to start with its upstream source. Use bundle info asciidocsy to find the path to your local AsciiDocsy gem. Otherwise, just go to the AsciiDocsy source repo and copy/paste the file contents into your own.

Template Hooks

Most of AsciiDocsy’s core Liquid templates contain at least one template hook, letting you insert or replace code in strategic places.

Anywhere a file contains syntax like {% include hook.liquid template="template_ext" spot="#some-place" %}, a hook is available. Defining this hook for your application will insert your own template into the parent template at that spot.

Hooked extensions are designated in _data/theme/extend.yml. Hooks look for site.data.theme.extend.hooks.templates.<template_ext>.<spot>, where <template_ext> is the filename of the calling template with a literal underscore (_) in place of the dot before the extension. The last slot, <spot>, references the spot argument of the hook.

Example hook objects from _data/theme/extend.yml
hooks:
  templates:
    footer_html:
      head: (1)
        template: footer-links_sup.html
1 references an insertion point near the top of the calling file.

Supplemental files can be named however you wish.

The breadcrumbs_html data object is commented out by default. To see this extension-hooks method in action, remove the comments and rebuild the site. Page breadcrumbs will be replaced by a statement.
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