Choosing a Hugo theme

[apreshill]

Must haves:

1. You have to be able to "serve site" with the exampleSite and it just works
2. Updated in at least the last 60 days, as shown by GitHub commits
3. Some responsiveness to issues- i.e., they MOVE. People post issues and the author does something with them! They may get labels asking for features/enhancements/help wanted etc., but you don't want to see a stockpile of issues dating back to 2016- that is a red flag
4. Hugo themes technically don't have "versions" but a maintainer who does is awesome Look for a theme.toml file in the GitHub repo.
   • https://github.com/htr3n/hyde-hyde/blob/master/theme.toml
   • https://github.com/gcushen/hugo-academic/blob/master/theme.toml

Nice to haves:

1. Built in highlightjs support for code highlighting
2. Built in font awesome, especially updated for FA5 (so brands + solids). It is a pretty big and recent overhaul, but shows some up-to-dateness of theme if they have upgraded to FA5.
3. Clear way to use custom CSS (preferably in the config.toml)
4. image for sharing (https://cards-dev.twitter.com/validator)

Know the hard vs. easy things to change (they may surprise you!):

1. Changing the landing page
2. Changing menu content/order/etc.
3. Changing fonts (here is where it is critical that there is a way to define a custom CSS in the config)