Orca

A jekyll template for easy creation of course websites. No need to code the messy HTML pages. Just make a few changes in user-friendly syntax, and you'll be good to go!

Why should I use it?

• Simple, elegant and minimalistic design, perfect for your course website.
• Easy to create and you get your website in no time, that too completely free!
• Highly flexible and responsive.
• You can host your site for free on GitHub Pages.

Template used in:

Checkout:

• Functional Programming with Python at BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
• Natural Language Processing at BITS Pilani, Goa Campus
• Software Engineering course website at GIT Jaipur
• Data Structures & Algorithms at GIT Jaipur
• Computational Biology at Tufts University

Quick Setup

For a guide to install Jekyll and build locally, refer here. Note that this is an optional step, required only if you want to locally build the website. You can actually build and host the website directly on GitHub pages.

6 Quick steps :

1. Using the template

Click on the 'Use this template' button above & fill in the repository details. Once the repository is created, clone it & make the changes below to this cloned repository.

2. Adding assets

Add any data files(Lecture slides, notes, assignments ) in the respective subdirectories in assets directory. If images are needed, add them directly to assets directory. Resources must be explicitly named with complete file extensions(.pdf, etc). Note: Please avoid changing directory structure of the root.

3. Set up header & footer

In the _data directory, go to the includes subdirectory's header.yml file and make the tabs you want (in existing format). Similarly customize the footer as per your wish.

4. Adding data in .yml files

For adding data in the HTML pages, make changes in the .yml files of corresponding subdirectories of _data directory. So, for instance, for adding content to the Resources.html page of your website, go to the resources subdirectory of _data directory. Then, for adding lecture details, go to lectures.yml.While adding content, avoid changing the keys/file names. If you have to change the keys, make the changes in the corresponding .HTML files (where it is being used as a key) too. Similarly, add content to all .yml files. Use basic HTML tags such as <p>, <br>,<a>, etc. explicitly while writing HTML code in the .yml files for their corresponing roles in HTML files.
N.B. :

• Avoid using double quotes(" ") in .yml files. Apostrophes & single inverted commas are fine. If you have to use double quotes, read the method of escape characters from here
• Ensure there is a 'space' character while writing in front of keys of .yml files and indent (note!) your code as per the format followed in the file.

5. Creating new pages

You can create new pages to your website by simply creating your_title.html (in root directory itself) and simply adding the front-matter, as shown in extra.html file. Do not forget to write the front-matter as the webpage will not render properly without it.

6. Configure the config.yml file

Fill in the details of config.yml. (If you are using GitHub pages to host your website, baseurl is the name of your repository. Also, if you are locally hosting your website(while development), set both url and baseurl to empty string("") ).

And, its done! Your awesome course website is ready!

• To create anything new, carefully use the same format as used in the same file.
• While creating new headings/ sub-headings, all id attributes should have values same as heading itself, so as to automatically render it.
• If you want assistance in deploying, click here.

Contributions:

Any constructive feedback or contributions are welcome & highly appreciated.