{% include toc icon="columns" title="Included Layouts" %}
The bread and butter of any theme. Below you'll find the layouts included with Minimal Mistakes, what they look like and the type of content they've been built for.
The base layout all other layouts inherit from. There's not much to this layout apart from pulling in several `_includes`:
*`<head>` elements
* masthead navigation links
* {% raw %}`{{ content }}`{% endraw %}
* page footer
* scripts
**Note:** You won't ever assign this layout directly to a post or page. Instead all other layouts will build off of it by setting `layout: default` in their YAML Front Matter.
Assign with `layout: single`, or better yet apply as a [Front Matter default]({{ base_path }}/docs/configuration/#front-matter-defaults) in `_config.yml`.
Below are sample archive pages you can easily drop into your project, taking care to rename `permalink`, `title`, or the filename to fit your site. Each is 100% compatible with GitHub Pages.
Post and page excerpts are auto-generated by Jekyll which grabs the first paragraph of text. To override this text with something more specific use the following YAML Front Matter:
```yaml
excerpt: "A unique line of text to describe this post that will display in an archive listing and meta description with SEO benefits."
```
### Grid View
Adding `type=grid` to the `archive-single` helper will display archive posts in a 4 column grid. For example to create an archive displaying all documents in the portfolio collection:
**Step 1:** Create a portfolio archive page (eg. `_pages/portfolio-archive.html`) with the following YAML Front Matter:
If you have the luxury of using Jekyll plugins the creation of category and tag archives is greatly simplified. Enable support for the [`jekyll-archives`](https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll-archives) plugin with a few `_config.yml` settings as noted in the [**Configuration**]({{ base_path }}/docs/configuration/#archive-settings) section.
Feature blocks can be assigned and aligned to the `left`, `right`, or `center` with a sprinkling of YAML. For full details on how to use the `feature_row` helper check the [**Content**]({{ base_path }}/docs/helpers-and-shortcodes/) section or review a [sample splash page]({{ site.gh_repo }}/gh-pages/_pages/splash-page.md).
**Note:** Be sure to resize your header images. `~1280px` is a good width if you aren't [responsively serving up images](http://alistapart.com/article/responsive-images-in-practice). Through the magic of CSS they will scale up or down to fill the container. If you go with something too small it will look like garbage when upscaled, and something too large will hurt performance.
The space to the left of a page's main content is blank by default, but has the ability to show an author profile (name, short biography, social media links), custom content, or both.
<figcaption>Example of custom sidebar content added as YAML Front Matter.</figcaption>
</figure>
**ProTip:** Custom sidebar content added to a post or page's YAML Front Matter will appear above the author profile if enabled with `author_profile: true`.