This repository contains a template built using Jekyll and GitHub pages that can be used to create simple websites or class publications.
You can preview the template here.
It was developed by the Columbia Center for Spatial Research (CSR) based on the Minima Jekyll theme in order to facilitate creating collaborative student publications in our seminars each year. Our goals were to create a framework that:
In spring 2019 the template was used by the Conflict Urbanism: Puerto Rico Now seminar, taught by Laura Kurgan and Frances Negrón-Muntaner.
We are making this template available for others to adapt or use in their own courses.
In what follows we briefly outline how to adapt this template for your own use.
This guide was written for beginners. In it you will learn:
First, a few notes: This template is built using Jekyll, but what is Jekyll? Briefly, Jekyll is a tool that creates static websites from plain text. The Programming Historian's Building a static website with Jekyll and GitHub Pages is a great introduction to Jekyll. And Alex Gil's series of posts in the Chronicle of Higher Education are a great overview of the motivations for using Jekyll in university contexts.
The key information to know at this point is that you and your students write material in simple markdown syntax and Jekyll turns this into an HTML website.
This tutorial does not assume any prior knowledge of HTML/CSS, it does however assume a basic familiarity with the functionality of GitHub, and that you have a GitHub account. Create one now here if you don't have one already.
Review the template_site here: centerforspatialresearch.github.io/template_site/
This website is being powered by content contained in this repository.
_includes
, _layout
, _sass
, and assets
folders contain the files that define the CSR template. You do not need to change any files inside these folders_posts
folder is what contains the markdown files that will become individual pages on the website._posts
folder and you'll see that each individual .md
file here is one page on the template website.md
files and select Raw
which will allow you to view the unformatted filelayout: post date: 2020-01-01 image: "/template_site/images/csr_thumbnail.png" title: "Template Post: Title of Your Final Project" author: "Names Of Everyone In Your Group"
```
images
folder is where any images that you include in the website should be placedabout.md
file is where you can add any text that will go in the 'about'_config.yml
file is where key information about your site gets set (like the title, and all of the information contained in the site's footer)That's it! Next we will clone the repository and walk through how to change key information to customize it for your own use.
Settings
tabGitHub Pages
sectionmaster branch as the source
Your site is ready to be published at:
then the URL of your new website. After a few minutes, refresh this page and the notice will read Your site is published at....
. Click on this link to see your new websiteCurrently your repository inherited the name of this CSR template repository that you forked it from: template_site
. This means that the site's URL from GitHub Pages is also something like yourgithubusername.github.io/template_site
(see note at the end of the guide about custom URLs) lets change this
Settings
of your repository, change the name of the repository to whatever you would like (note it cannot contain any spaces). Moving forward we will refer to it as your-course-name
your-course-name
will also change the name of the sub-folder that your site is published from (if you scroll down to the GitHub Pages
section of the Settings
page you will see that the link to your site has changed). This will cause many of the links of your site to break. But fear not! To fix this we will make changes to the _config.yml
file_config.yml
file in your repository, open it, and then click the pencil icon to be able to edit the _config.yml
file in your browserbaseurl:
to match the sub-folder that your site is published from. It should be something like baseurl: "/your-course-name"
. Note formatting here is important, the repository/sub-folder name must be in quotes and there must be a colon immediately after baseurl_config.yml
file scroll down to commit your changes (this saves all of the changes you made, and keeps a record of what those changes were)_posts
folder, and open the 2020-01-01-last-first.md
file, again click on the pencil icon to open up the editor mode./template_site/images/image-name.png
replace template_site
with your new repository/sub-folder nameSettings
for your repository) check to see that everything is working.Now you are ready to start adding your own material to your new website.
There are a few steps to set up your site so that your students or other collaborators can add material directly to the site
Settings
and then Collaborators & teams