This blog is part of my Human–Computer Interaction coursework, but I wanted it to feel like a place of my own. Before I could share any projects, I had to get the site running.
I used Hugo, a tool that turns text files and a theme into web pages. That means I can write a post, add its images, and let Hugo build the website. Simple enough in principle. On my Windows setup, getting there involved competing installations, missing files, and a few errors I didn’t immediately understand.
Here is how I worked through those problems, published the first version on GitHub Pages, and chose the look of Joao’s Files.
The first setup
I initially used hugo-coder. The first problem was copying the theme’s example files: the command I had followed used Linux/macOS syntax and didn’t work in PowerShell. I copied the files manually to continue.
Then hugo server -D failed while compiling SCSS. I had the standard Hugo edition, but the theme needed Extended for LibSass. The +withdeploy label in my version didn’t mean that Extended was included.
Installing another version through Winget didn’t fix it. Windows was still finding the executable in C:\Users\joaok\go\bin first. I had changed the installation without changing which Hugo actually ran.
To keep the installation through Go, I installed GCC using MinGW-w64 and rebuilt Hugo with CGO enabled:
$env:CGO_ENABLED = "1"
go install -tags extended,withdeploy github.com/gohugoio/hugo@v0.166.0
After that, even hugo version exited without printing anything. The missing piece was the MinGW runtime: Hugo needed DLLs such as libgcc_s_seh-1.dll and libstdc++-6.dll. Adding C:\Program Files\mingw64\bin to PATH fixed it, and the version finally showed +extended+withdeploy.
Getting the first version onto GitHub Pages
The deployment had two separate problems. I had put the workflow in .github/workflow, but GitHub expects .github/workflows, with an s.
Once the workflow ran, the SCSS error came back. The Action was downloading standard Hugo for Linux, so fixing my Windows installation hadn’t fixed the build on GitHub. I changed the download to hugo_extended and added the image-cache configuration to hugo.toml.
That got the first version building locally and publishing through GitHub Actions. This was the original hugo-coder setup, before I moved to the current theme.
Choosing a different theme
I wanted something different from the example we used in class. I spent quite a while browsing themes, looking for a minimal layout with a technical feel that still looked like a blog.
Some of the options I considered were Rewired, Shibui, re-Terminal, and Solitude.
I ended up choosing Mana. Its dark background, purple accents, and simple layout were close to what I wanted.
Changing themes meant I couldn’t follow every step of the class tutorial exactly. I had to adjust filenames, paths, and configuration options. An old Hugo installation left in the project files also caused confusion after the earlier version changes.
Making it my blog
I set the name to Joao’s Files, added Between real and virtual to the homepage, and used Notes on vision, AI, and virtual worlds as the description. I also added my About page, GitHub, LinkedIn, email, and a portrait illustration based on my photo.
For posts, I use a folder containing an index.md file and its images. This keeps the text and photos for each assignment together. After writing Homework 1, I also reduced the images in the post body: they were taking up too much of the screen. They now open at full size when clicked.
So after all of that, I can finally say to you, my reader:
Welcome to my Blog!