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Gavin Y. · October 25, 2019

Miscellaneous   Memo

Finally, got my github pages done.

It was confused for me about how to apply Jekyll Themes. At begining, I followed tutorial to download & install Ruby/Jekyll and other stuff and then I realized that I don’t need to start from scratch. After all, I just want to have a blog on github. Here are simple steps:

Step 1: Find a theme

Themes can be found in many places like jekyllthemes.org, jekyllthemes.io and others. Or just simply search in Google.

Consider following things when you choose a theme:

  • Do you like it?
  • Does it support mobile view?
  • Do you need side column for categories, posts list, etc?
  • Do you need features like search, analytics, etc?
  • Do you need to support comments?

Step 2: Apply the theme

Most of themes are on github.com. So just simply go to its repo (I use Reverie).

First option: create from the template

For example,

  • Press the "Use this template" button Use Template

  • Fill new repo’s information and press "Create repository from template" button Use Template

Second option: download files and update your repo directly

If you have already created your repo, you can download template and put all files into your repo directly. (This is what I did)

Step 3: Customize

After step #2 you should be able to see your pages (same as the template). Next is to customize pages to make it your own.

  • Go over the pages quickly and find out all the text, pictures and links belong to the template. (For example, title, description, names, icon, etc).
  • Update text, use your own.
  • Update links to you home page, twitter, github, linkedin, etc.
  • Create/Choose your own picture used by your pages.
  • Modify template source code when it is necessary (I have to say that no template can meet expectation perfectly – a little bit change can make it much better).

Don’t spend too much time on this, theme is never the purpose

Customize

Step 4: Post

That’s the most important part! Write first post and post it!

Tricks

  • Edit your post under _drafts folder, when it is done, move it to _posts folder and prefix its file name with "YYYY-MM-DD-".
  • Create a folder for each post under images(or img) using the post’s name, and put all images used by this post into that folder.

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