Best way to use a theme and customize it while keeping up to date - submodules or modules?

Using Themes
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1

Hi, new to Hugo but almost ready to launch my site. I’m currently using the re-terminal theme and have made some of my own changes/additions with the theme as a git submodule.

To keep the ability to pull new changes from re-terminal and continue to have my own changes remain, is the best way to do this a branching strategy like here? Making sure before I get all that going lol.

I am very interested in using Hugo Modules instead of the project + submodule theme setup if the Hugo/Go modules method makes this updating/merging easier. Haven’t read enough on it but if anyone more experienced can vouch for that being better in my case (have a third party theme but want heavy customization ability as a dev) I’m willing to pivot.

Thank you for any info! Happy to answer questions if needed.

2

With this theme structure:

themes/
└── foo/
    └── layouts/
        └── _default/
            ├── baseof.html
            ├── home.html
            ├── list.html
            └── single.html

If you want to override home.html, copy it to the same path relative to the root of your project.

layouts/
└── _default/
    └── home.html   <-- overrides themes/foo/layouts/_default/home.html
themes/
└── foo/
    └── layouts/
        └── _default/
            ├── baseof.html
            ├── home.html
            ├── list.html
            └── single.html

Use this approach regardless of how you add themes to your project. Never modify a theme—override instead.

3

Ah, that’s exactly what I needed! Basically what’s the best practice as I didn’t think messing with it directly made a lot of sense. I guess I’ll forego the modules thing for now since this is a straightforward and working approach. Thanks!

4

Didn’t think to ask this follow up till now, but what about modifying styling/CSS vs. the layouts/templates? IS this also a case I can override what’s in the theme? If so, where does that CSS go (or if it’s a docs page I missed, link is also great lol)?

5

Use the same approach to override anything in the following directories:

  • archetypes
  • assets
  • content
  • data
  • i18n
  • layouts
  • static

Be sure to read your theme’s documentation for specifics… some themes have a preferred mechanism for adding/overriding CSS.