The following will serve as a self-reminder for how this blog was setup on Github Pages.

Setup Steps

  1. Setup Local Development Environment
  2. Initialize with sample jekyll blog structure
  3. Created repo <username>.github.io
  4. Push local repo to remote
  5. Update repo settings to enable Github Pages

Setup Local Development Evironment

We need a couple things for Macos development:

  1. Homebrew
  2. Ruby
  3. xcode-select
  4. Gems: Bundler and Jekyll

Homebrew 

$ /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

Ruby 

$ /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
$ brew install ruby
$ ruby -v

xcode-select 

$ xcode-select --install

Gems: Bundler and Jekyll 

$ gem install bundler jekyll

Initialize with sample jekyll blog structure

Installs default minimal theme, minima.

$ jekyll new dlstadther.github.io

Create repo <username>.github.io

  1. github.com
  2. New repository
  3. Repo metadata
    • Repository name: dlstadther.github.io
    • Description: Personal Webpage powered with Github Pages and Jekyll
    • Public
    • No initialization contents

Push local repo to remote 

$ cd dlstadther.github.io/
$ git remote add origin git@github.com:dlstadther/dlstadther.github.io.git
$ git add .  # bad practice, but notes intention
$ git commit -m "Initialize repo"
$ git push origin master

Update repo settings to enable Github Pages

  1. github.com/dlstadther/dlstadther.github.io/settings
  2. Enable Github Pages
  3. Source branch: master
  4. Enforce HTTPS

Development Process

Site Configuration 

bundle update

Post Writing

As blog posts take awhile for me to write, a post will need to sit somewhere under version control where it will not be compiled and displayed with completed articles.

For this reason, a _draft/ exists.

I create a file with the following Front Matter contents:

---
layout: post
title: "Sample Draft Blog Post"
date: 2018-06-28
categories: setup guide notes
---

and save it with the title _draft/sample-draft-blog-post.md.

Throughout the writing process, I will desire to see the compiled version of my work-in-progress. I am able to do so by the following:

$ cd dlstadther.github.io/
$ jekyll serve --drafts

then navigate to http://127.0.0.1:4000/. When done in this “debugging” draft mode, just ctrl-c to stop the jekyll process.

Once I reach contentment with a post, I update the Front Matter date to the current date and move the draft to posts with a modified filename.

$ mv dlstadther.github.io/_drafts/sample-draft-blog-post.md dlstadther.github.io/_posts/2018-07-20-sample-draft-blog-post.md

And of course add, commit, and push with git.

Then voilà, a new blog post!