Starter Jekyll Devblog

Starter template for a student devblog based on the starter Jekyll Minima theme.

View live version here: live-preview

This repository gets you started with:

• Minimally formatted placeholder:
  • Homepage
  • About page
  • Blog page
  • Projects page
• An example blog post
• An placeholder project post
• A placeholder portrait (red panda!)

Customizations include:

• Using collections instead of posts for greater flexibility
• Separate collections for Projects and Blog Posts
• Usage of Jekyll components (using includes) inspired by React components

Usage

Installation

Follow the official documentation to install Jekyll. Be sure to install the required version of Ruby and follow the installation guide for your operating system.

Make sure you install the versions of Ruby and Jekyll that are compatible with your chosen hosting solution.

Using This Repository

After you have installed Ruby and Jekyll, following the docs for either Jekyll or GitHub pages,

1. Fork and clone this repository onto your system.
2. Using your terminal, navigate to the local folder containing your copy of this repository.
3. Run the bundle install command from your terminal.

You are now free to make changes to the website!

To preview your website in developer mode:

1. Run bundle exec jekyll serve.
2. In your browser, navigate to the server address that appears (it will likely be localhost:4000).

VSCode Markdown Codeblocks

If you are using VSCode, in your settings.json file, copy and paste the following:

  "[markdown]": {
    "editor.formatOnSave": false,
  },  

This will turn off auto-formatting for your markdown files and ensure codeblock sections in your markdown files work properly—in practice, this mainly means preserving indentations.

Publishing Your Site

There are two free and easy options to host your website for free:

• Netlify
• GitHub Pages

Netlify (Recommended)

I recommend using Netlify to deploy your Jekyll site.

• It's a more flexible solution (e.g. you can keep your repository private and customize the subdomain name to your liking).
• It is currently easier to use—there is less setup required, as you do not need to worry about version compatibility in your Gemfile unless you add additional Gems.

GitHub Pages

The latest versions of Jekyll and Ruby are incompatible with the current version of GitHub Pages. If you decide to use GitHub pages, be sure to follow the official GitHub Docs to create a GitHub Pages site with Jekyll and ensure version compatibility in your Gemfile.

Note that to use GitHub Pages to host your website for free, your repository must be made public.

Happy building!