Retro Garden

Dial-up soul, garden-path links, modern static bones.

Search indexed :: responsive images online :: webmentions ready :: RSS flowing :: accessible by default

customize.md

editing guide

Customize

A map of the pieces you can remove, keep, or extend as you turn Retro Garden into your own site.

This page intentionally uses the optional sidebar so you can see the on/off behavior in the same theme.

What you can remove cleanly

  • The marquee strip in base.njk if you want a calmer header.
  • The palette picker if you would rather ship with a single brand direction.
  • The example pages and sample posts once you replace them with your own content.
  • The home page side panels if you want a more minimal front page.

Features you can switch off

The features object in src/_data/site.js controls search links, responsive image processing, generated social cards, breadcrumbs, post sidebars, share links, sample home-page content, analytics, and webmention displays. Keep the feature data and layouts in place, then change only the matching boolean when you want a quieter starter.

Analytics is disabled until TINYLYTICS_ID exists. Webmentions are disabled until both WEBMENTION_ENDPOINT and WEBMENTION_API are configured, so a fresh install makes no analytics or webmention requests.

Images, search, and archives

  • Add a local image to Markdown and Eleventy Image can generate AVIF and WebP sources, widths, lazy loading, and intrinsic dimensions.
  • Pagefind indexes the completed site after every production build; edit src/search.njk to change the interface.
  • The journal paginates at three posts per page in src/journal.njk.
  • Eleventy Navigation data supplies the breadcrumb trail without duplicating it in each layout.

Pages now default to full width

The page.njk layout no longer reserves empty sidebar space. It only creates a second column when you provide sidebar content in front matter.

Posts keep the author context with the article

The about-the-author block now sits at the bottom of the post panel instead of living in the global footer, which makes the article feel more self-contained.

Suggested first edits

  1. Replace the placeholder identity and production URL settings in site.js.
  2. Decide which home page panels actually belong to your site.
  3. Pick Ember, Surf, Mint, Midnight, or system-aware mode as the default and adjust the palette tokens until they feel intentionally different.