Hydejack has always featured a JavaScript-heavy sidebar, but other than that, JS has been used sparingly. This changes with this release, which adds a ton of (optional) code that changes the feel of the theme dramatically.

This major release increases page load speed dramatically. The page now scores roughly 90/100 on Google’s PageSpeed Insights (up from ~50) and has a high score on similar tools.

Hydejack v4 adds a lot of social media icons and introduces a new default layout. It also breaks things, hence a new major release number.

Breaking

• Structure of _config.yml has changed
  • Social media usernames are now located under author: social: <platform>: <username>.
  • disqus is now a top-level entry (moved from author).
  • Now has font, font_accent and google_fonts fields that are mandatory.
• Now defaults to the blog layout, old style is available via blog-by-tag layout, see archive.html.

Unlike Hyde, Hydejack is very opinionated about how you are going to use it.

Features

Features include:

• Touch-enabled sidebar / drawer for mobile, including fallback when JS is disabled.
• Github Pages compatible tag support based on this post.
• Customizable link color and sidebar image, per-site, per-tag and per-post.
• Optional author section at the bottom of each post.
• Optional comment section powered by Disqus.
• Layout for posts grouped by year
• Wide array of social media icons on sidebar.
• Math blocks via KaTeX.