Adding a Friend Links Page to Hugo

Friend links are a great tool for expanding a blog’s reach. This article explains how to add a friend links page to a Hugo blog.

Steps

Inline HTML Implementation

Configuring the friend links page link is mentioned in config.yml in Building a Personal Blog with Hugo (2), corresponding to the following configuration:

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          - identifier: links
            name: 🤝Friend Links
            url: links
            weight: 60

To keep it simple and easy to modify, it can be implemented with inline HTML.

Edit content/links.md and add the following content:

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---
title: "🤝Friend Links"
layout: links
summary: links
---

<style>
.friend-links {
  display: flex;
  justify-content: space-between; /* Distribute elements evenly in a row */
  flex-wrap: wrap; /* Allow elements to wrap */
}

.friend-link {
  display: inline-block;
  margin: 5%;
  text-align: center;
  text-decoration: none;
  color: var(--content);
  max-width: 15%;
}

.friend-link img {
  width: 100%;
  height: auto;
  border-radius: 50%;
}

.friend-link .name {
  margin-top: 5px;
}
</style>

<div class="friend-links">
  <a class="friend-link" href="https://333rd.net/" target="_blank">
    <img src="https://333rd.net/img/logo.gif" alt="Friend Link Logo" loading="lazy">
    <div class="name">3rd's Blog</div>
  </a>
  <!-- Add more friend link elements -->
</div>

Then run hugo --gc to update your blog.

Shortcodes Implementation

If you want to implement it with Shortcodes, you can refer to《Adding friend links to a Hugo blog and successfully exchanging friend links with LINUX DO》.

Create layouts/shortcodes/friendlink.html and add the following content:

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<article class="friend-card">
  <a class="friend-link" href="{{ .Get "url" }}" target="_blank">
    <div class="friend-logo">
      <img src="{{ .Get "logo" }}" alt="Friend Link Logo" loading="lazy">
    </div>
    <div class="friend-info">
      <div class="friend-name">{{ .Get "name" }}</div>
      <div class="friend-slogan">{{ .Get "slogan" }}</div>
    </div>
  </a>
</article>

Create assets/css/extended/links.css

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.friend-container {
  display: flex;
  flex-wrap: wrap;
  justify-content: center;
  gap: 20px;
  margin: 20px 0;
}

.friend-card {
  flex: 0 1 200px;
  border: 1px solid #ccc;
  border-radius: 8px;
  overflow: hidden;
  transition: transform 0.3s ease, box-shadow 0.3s ease;
  box-shadow: 0 2px 5px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);
  min-height: 250px; /* Ensure consistent card height */
}

.friend-card:hover {
  transform: translateY(-5px);
  box-shadow: 0 4px 10px rgba(0,0,0,0.2);
}

.friend-link {
  display: block;
  text-decoration: none;
  color: var(--content);
  padding: 15px;
  text-align: center;
}

.friend-logo {
  width: 100%;
  height: 150px;
  display: flex;
  align-items: center;
  justify-content: center;
  background-color: #f7f7f7;
}

.friend-logo img {
  max-width: 100%;
  max-height: 100%;
  object-fit: contain;
  transition: opacity 0.3s ease;
}

.friend-logo:hover img {
  opacity: 0.8;
}

.friend-info {
  padding: 10px;
  text-align: center;
  min-height: 100px; /* Ensure enough space for the slogan */
}

.friend-name {
  font-size: 18px;
  font-weight: bold;
  margin: 5px 0;
}

.friend-slogan {
  font-size: 14px;
  color: #666;
  margin: 0;
}

@media (max-width: 768px) {
  .friend-card {
    flex: 0 1 150px;
  }
  
  .friend-logo {
    height: 120px;
  }
  
  .friend-name {
    font-size: 16px;
  }
  
  .friend-slogan {
    font-size: 12px;
  }
}

Create static/friendlogo/ — friend link logos can be placed here.

Finally, in content/links.md, use the shortcode as follows to add friend links:

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---
title: "🤝Friend Links"
layout: links
summary: links
---

<!--Friend links need to be used inside this tag to match the CSS styles-->
<div class="friend-container">

{{< friendlink name="3rd's Blog" url="https://333rd.net/" logo="/friendlogo/3rd.logo.png" slogan="Slogan placeholder; may be used in the future." >}}

</div>

References