Releases
Posted on August 14, 2023 (Last modified on September 6, 2023) • 15 min read • 3,160 wordsA chronological overview of key releases since the initial launch of Hinode.
The timeline below captures the significant changes since the initial release of Hinode in April, 2022. Visit GitHub for a full overview of all Hinode releases , including features, bug fixes, and dependency upgrades.
October 21, 2024
This release simplifies the integration with cookie consent managers. A reference implementation for CookieYes is available as a separate module. This release also improves the management of content security policies. You can now define the required policies in each individual module, and Hinode will generate the required server headers.
August 15, 2024
This release includes support for markdown links and markdown images. Hinode will invoke the relevant partials, so they will have the same behavior and styling as their counterparts. This release also includes support for server-side math rendering as introduced by Hugo v0.132.0 .
August 2, 2024
Hinode includes search support out of the box. To limit the bundle size, the search index now includes entries for the current translation only. To enable localization, the module configuration includes a new parameter localize. By default, the FlexSearch module sets localization to true. See the
module configuration for all available options.
June 3, 2024
Hinodes uses Hugo’s image processing to preprocess images on the server side. Hugo uses caching to reduce the build time. Despite the caching techniques, the image processing can take significant time, especially on larger sites. An alternative approach is to use a dedicated Digital Asset Manager. Most managers offer an API to transform images on the fly. This release introduces support for several Digital Asset Managers, including Cloudinary, ImageKit.io, and Imgix. The required adapters are configurable.
March 17, 2024
This release is mostly a maintenance release that refactors several assets. It introduces several changes to ensure Hinode is fully compatible with Hugo v0.123.x and v0.124.0. With Hugo’s recent improvements, you can expect a reduction of build times. Behind the scenes, this release introduces several changes to prepare for an upcoming overhaul of the page rendering. Using so-called content blocks, a future release of Hinode will support composable page elements such as a hero section, about section, and more. A sneak preview is available on
https://theme-agency.gethinode.com/en/
.
January 4, 2024
Hinode supports more than 30 shortcodes. Most of these shortcodes support multiple arguments to configure their behavior and to adjust their visual appearance. A new utility uses a data file to validate the available arguments, their types, and supported values for each shortcode and underlying partial. A new shortcode args uses the same specification to generate shortcode documentation. Visit the page about Partial development to familiarize yourself with the new conventions.
November 5, 2023
This release introduces support to include taxonomies as regular content sections. You can filter the taxonomies by keywords to make them more specific. In addition, Hinode now supports content view templates to simplify the implementation of new layout types. Finally, the handling of images and scripts has been improved to further reduce the loading time of the site.
September 7, 2023
The extended version of Hugo includes LibSass to transpile Sass to CSS. In 2020, the Sass team deprecated LibSass in favor of Dart Sass . Hinode now supports this new library so you can use the latest features of the Sass language. Visit the styles settings on how to enable Dart Sass. The stylesheet now also takes advantage of caching, so you can expect a reduction of ~25% build time.
August 14, 2023
This release simplifies the initial setup of Hinode. Install Hinode either as regular theme, or use the template to take advantage of automation via npm. This release also introduces several styling changes to improve accessibility. Two new helpers are available to improve the contrast of the primary color in dark mode. In addition, several accessibility improvements have been made under the hood. Finally, with the help of @aefly , Hinode is now available in the French language as well.
August 2, 2023
Up until now, Hinode used web fonts and stylesheets to display Font Awesome icons. This release adds support for inline icons using vector images. These vector icons still support the common styling and animation directives. When enabled, the size of the generated site’s assets should be ~200k less on average.
July 21, 2023
This release of Hinode introduces support for Hugo modules to create a flexible build system. By configuring a module as either core or optional, you have full control of how these modules are processed and integrated with your Hinode site. npm is still supported, but is no longer a prerequisite. Visit the instructions to upgrade your existing site.
June 26, 2023
This release of Hinode introduces support for versioned documentation. You can either maintain the different versions within the same repository, or use an approach with multi-branch deployments (currently supported for Netlify).
May 17, 2023
This release improves the visualization of active items in the main navigation. By default, Hinode marks a main menu item as active by matching its permalink with the address of the current page. This release introduces a configurable option to override this selection. By adding a parameter called alias, you can now explicitly instruct the navigation to select a specific menu item.
May 15, 2023
This release of Hinode is a stability update that refactors the code for sections, including page snippets.
April 25, 2023
This release overhauls the configuration of sections. Hinode now adds supports for so-called content snippets. These snippets are not published as permalinks, but can be included on other pages. A typical example would be a list of product features that are listed on the homepage. The configuration of the page sections has been adjusted to support both regular pages and content snippets. The configuration itself has also been improved.
April 5, 2023
This release introduces support for nesting of menus in the sidebar navigation. Previously, nesting was supported at two levels deep. With this release, the level of nesting is no longer limited. This should be especially helpful for larger documentation sites.
April 3, 2023
This release introduces support to purge unused CSS. Both Bootstrap and Font Awesome introduce many CSS definitions that may not be needed to render the final site. Removing these unnecessary settings reduces the file size of the stylesheet, thus optimizing the speed of the page load. The setting is disabled by default, as it requires thorough testing and tweaking. A user guide is available on how to use this setting to optimize the user experience.
February 17, 2023
This release introduces the much anticipated native support for color modes by Bootstrap. This enables live switching between light themes and dark themes, or support for custom color modes. This release introduces several hot fixes, as the Bootstrap release is still in alpha. These hot fixes will be removed once Bootstrap reaches its stable release.
February 4, 2023
Hinode originated as a personal project. The main repository included many documentation pages, which are not relevant for a starter template. This release launches a new website on https://gethinode.com. The ownership of the repositories is transferred to a new organization. The documentation pages are now separated from the main repository to provide a clean starting point for derived repositories.
December 5, 2022
This release introduces support for the carousel element. The carousel is a slideshow component for cycling through images. It uses the image shortcode to ensure the images are responsive.
December 3, 2022
This release introduces support for multilingual sites and internationalization. A new dropdown item in the main navigation simplifies switching between available languages. By taking advantage of Hugo’s content organization, switching between page translations should be seamless.
October 28, 2022
Inspired by the Command Line plugin for Prism, this release introduces a shortcode to embed a command prompt within Markdown content. The command prompt supports Bash, PowerShell, and SQL. You can adjust the host, user, and prompt itself. The shortcode also supports line continuation and outputs.
April 18, 2022
This release enhances the spacing of the navbar and main page elements.
April 16, 2022
This release introduces support for native syntax highlighting of code blocks. A button is added at run-time to enable copying of the code to the clipboard.
April 14, 2022
Inspired by Doks, this release introduces a child theme of Hinode. The child theme uses npm to refer to the latest available package. npm brings the benefit that dependencies can be automatically upgraded as part of the CI/CD process. It also abstracts from the core code of Hinode, keeping child repositories small and focused.
April 13, 2022
Inspired by Blist and Doks, this release introduces Hinode - a modern blog and documentation theme for Hugo. By taking advantage of npm, the used dependencies are easily tracked and updated. Powered by Bootstrap, the generated website is responsive and brings many common UI elements. Hinode wraps many of these elements in a shortcode to simplify their usage.
October 21, 2024
This release simplifies the integration with cookie consent managers. A reference implementation for CookieYes is available as a separate module. This release also improves the management of content security policies. You can now define the required policies in each individual module, and Hinode will generate the required server headers.
August 15, 2024
This release includes support for markdown links and markdown images. Hinode will invoke the relevant partials, so they will have the same behavior and styling as their counterparts. This release also includes support for server-side math rendering as introduced by Hugo v0.132.0 .
August 2, 2024
Hinode includes search support out of the box. To limit the bundle size, the search index now includes entries for the current translation only. To enable localization, the module configuration includes a new parameter localize. By default, the FlexSearch module sets localization to true. See the
module configuration for all available options.
June 3, 2024
Hinodes uses Hugo’s image processing to preprocess images on the server side. Hugo uses caching to reduce the build time. Despite the caching techniques, the image processing can take significant time, especially on larger sites. An alternative approach is to use a dedicated Digital Asset Manager. Most managers offer an API to transform images on the fly. This release introduces support for several Digital Asset Managers, including Cloudinary, ImageKit.io, and Imgix. The required adapters are configurable.
March 17, 2024
This release is mostly a maintenance release that refactors several assets. It introduces several changes to ensure Hinode is fully compatible with Hugo v0.123.x and v0.124.0. With Hugo’s recent improvements, you can expect a reduction of build times. Behind the scenes, this release introduces several changes to prepare for an upcoming overhaul of the page rendering. Using so-called content blocks, a future release of Hinode will support composable page elements such as a hero section, about section, and more. A sneak preview is available on
https://theme-agency.gethinode.com/en/
.
January 4, 2024
Hinode supports more than 30 shortcodes. Most of these shortcodes support multiple arguments to configure their behavior and to adjust their visual appearance. A new utility uses a data file to validate the available arguments, their types, and supported values for each shortcode and underlying partial. A new shortcode args uses the same specification to generate shortcode documentation. Visit the page about Partial development to familiarize yourself with the new conventions.
November 5, 2023
This release introduces support to include taxonomies as regular content sections. You can filter the taxonomies by keywords to make them more specific. In addition, Hinode now supports content view templates to simplify the implementation of new layout types. Finally, the handling of images and scripts has been improved to further reduce the loading time of the site.
September 7, 2023
The extended version of Hugo includes LibSass to transpile Sass to CSS. In 2020, the Sass team deprecated LibSass in favor of Dart Sass . Hinode now supports this new library so you can use the latest features of the Sass language. Visit the styles settings on how to enable Dart Sass. The stylesheet now also takes advantage of caching, so you can expect a reduction of ~25% build time.
August 14, 2023
This release simplifies the initial setup of Hinode. Install Hinode either as regular theme, or use the template to take advantage of automation via npm. This release also introduces several styling changes to improve accessibility. Two new helpers are available to improve the contrast of the primary color in dark mode. In addition, several accessibility improvements have been made under the hood. Finally, with the help of @aefly , Hinode is now available in the French language as well.
August 2, 2023
Up until now, Hinode used web fonts and stylesheets to display Font Awesome icons. This release adds support for inline icons using vector images. These vector icons still support the common styling and animation directives. When enabled, the size of the generated site’s assets should be ~200k less on average.
July 21, 2023
This release of Hinode introduces support for Hugo modules to create a flexible build system. By configuring a module as either core or optional, you have full control of how these modules are processed and integrated with your Hinode site. npm is still supported, but is no longer a prerequisite. Visit the instructions to upgrade your existing site.
June 26, 2023
This release of Hinode introduces support for versioned documentation. You can either maintain the different versions within the same repository, or use an approach with multi-branch deployments (currently supported for Netlify).
May 17, 2023
This release improves the visualization of active items in the main navigation. By default, Hinode marks a main menu item as active by matching its permalink with the address of the current page. This release introduces a configurable option to override this selection. By adding a parameter called alias, you can now explicitly instruct the navigation to select a specific menu item.
May 15, 2023
This release of Hinode is a stability update that refactors the code for sections, including page snippets.
April 25, 2023
This release overhauls the configuration of sections. Hinode now adds supports for so-called content snippets. These snippets are not published as permalinks, but can be included on other pages. A typical example would be a list of product features that are listed on the homepage. The configuration of the page sections has been adjusted to support both regular pages and content snippets. The configuration itself has also been improved.
April 5, 2023
This release introduces support for nesting of menus in the sidebar navigation. Previously, nesting was supported at two levels deep. With this release, the level of nesting is no longer limited. This should be especially helpful for larger documentation sites.
April 3, 2023
This release introduces support to purge unused CSS. Both Bootstrap and Font Awesome introduce many CSS definitions that may not be needed to render the final site. Removing these unnecessary settings reduces the file size of the stylesheet, thus optimizing the speed of the page load. The setting is disabled by default, as it requires thorough testing and tweaking. A user guide is available on how to use this setting to optimize the user experience.
February 17, 2023
This release introduces the much anticipated native support for color modes by Bootstrap. This enables live switching between light themes and dark themes, or support for custom color modes. This release introduces several hot fixes, as the Bootstrap release is still in alpha. These hot fixes will be removed once Bootstrap reaches its stable release.
February 4, 2023
Hinode originated as a personal project. The main repository included many documentation pages, which are not relevant for a starter template. This release launches a new website on https://gethinode.com. The ownership of the repositories is transferred to a new organization. The documentation pages are now separated from the main repository to provide a clean starting point for derived repositories.
December 5, 2022
This release introduces support for the carousel element. The carousel is a slideshow component for cycling through images. It uses the image shortcode to ensure the images are responsive.
December 3, 2022
This release introduces support for multilingual sites and internationalization. A new dropdown item in the main navigation simplifies switching between available languages. By taking advantage of Hugo’s content organization, switching between page translations should be seamless.
October 28, 2022
Inspired by the Command Line plugin for Prism, this release introduces a shortcode to embed a command prompt within Markdown content. The command prompt supports Bash, PowerShell, and SQL. You can adjust the host, user, and prompt itself. The shortcode also supports line continuation and outputs.
April 18, 2022
This release enhances the spacing of the navbar and main page elements.
April 16, 2022
This release introduces support for native syntax highlighting of code blocks. A button is added at run-time to enable copying of the code to the clipboard.
April 14, 2022
Inspired by Doks, this release introduces a child theme of Hinode. The child theme uses npm to refer to the latest available package. npm brings the benefit that dependencies can be automatically upgraded as part of the CI/CD process. It also abstracts from the core code of Hinode, keeping child repositories small and focused.
April 13, 2022
Inspired by Blist and Doks, this release introduces Hinode - a modern blog and documentation theme for Hugo. By taking advantage of npm, the used dependencies are easily tracked and updated. Powered by Bootstrap, the generated website is responsive and brings many common UI elements. Hinode wraps many of these elements in a shortcode to simplify their usage.