Getting Started

Preparation

Follow the Jekyll Docs to complete the installtion of basic environment (Ruby, RubyGem, Bundler and Jekyll). In order to use the script tools to save time, we also need to install Python(version 3.5 or abover) and ruamel.yaml.

In addition, if your machine is running Debian or macOS, make sure you have the GNU coreutils installed. Otherwise, get it by:

• Debian

$ sudo apt-get install coreutils

• macOS

$ brew install coreutils

Install Jekyll Plugins

Go to the root of repo and run:

$ bundle install

bundle will install all the dependent Jekyll Plugins listed in file Gemfile automatically.

File Structure

The main files and related brief introductions are listed below.

jekyll-theme-chirpy/
├── _data
├── _includes      
├── _layouts
├── _posts          # posts stay here
├── _scripts
├── .travis.yml     # remove it
├── .github         # remove this, too
├── assets      
├── tabs
│   └── about.md    # the ABOUT page
├── .gitignore
├── 404.html
├── Gemfile
├── LICENSE
├── README.md
├── _config.yml     # configuration file
├── tools           # script tools
├── feed.xml
├── index.html
├── robots.txt
└── sitemap.xml

As mentioned above, some files or directories should be removed from your repo:

• .travis.yml
• .github

Configuration

Customize the variables in file _config.yml as needed.

• Avatar

  The sample avatar is /assets/img/sample/avatar.jpg. It should be replaced by your own one. Notice that a huge image file will increase the load time of your site, so keep your avatar size as samll as possible(may be https://tinypng.com/ will help).

• TimeZone

  To ensure that the posts’ release date matches the city you live in, please modify the field timezone correctly. A list of all available values can be found on TimezoneConverter or Wikipedia.

Run Locally

You may want to preview the site before publishing, so just run the script tool:

$ bash tools/run.sh

Open a brower and visit http://localhost:4000.

Few days later, you may find that the file changes does not refresh in real time by using run.sh. Don’t worry, the advanced option -r (or --realtime) will solve this problem, but it requires fswatch to be installed on your machine.

Deploying to GitHub Pages

Before the deployment begins, ensure the url in file _config.yml has been set to https://<username>.github.io(or the custom domain, if you have. e.g. https://yourdomain.com). What’s more, if you prefer to the Project site, change baseurl of file _config.yml to your project name, starting with a slash. e.g. /project.

Option 1: Built by GitHub Pages

By deploying the site in this way, you’re allowed to push the source code directly to the remote.

Note: If you want to use any third-party Jekyll plugins that not in this list, stop reading the current approach and go to Option 2: Build locally.

1. Rename the repository to:

Site Type	Repo’s Name
User or Organization	<username>.github.io
Project	any one except <username>.github.io, let’s say project

2. Commit the changes of the repo first, then run the initialization script:

$ bash tools/init.sh

Please note that the Recent Update list requires the latest git-log date of posts, thus make sure the changes in _posts have been committed before running this command.

it will automatically generates the Latest Modified Date and Categories / Tags page for the posts.

3. Push the changes to origin/master then go to GitHub website and enable GitHub Pages service for the repo.

4. Check it out:

Site Type	Site URL
User or Organization	https://<username>.github.io/
Project	https://<username>.github.io/project/

Option 2: Build Locally

For security reasons, GitHub Pages runs on safe mode, which means the third-party Jekyll plugins or custom scripts won’t work. If you want to use any another plugins that not in the whitelist, you have to generate the site locally rather than on GitHub Pages.

1. Browse to GitHub website, create a brand new repo named:

Site Type	Repo’s Name
User or Organization	<username>.github.io
Project	any one except <username>.github.io, let’s say project

and clone it.

2. In the root of the source project, build your site by:

$ bash tools/build.sh -d /path/to/local/project/

The generated static files will be placed in the root of /path/to/local/project. Commit and push the changes to the master branch on GitHub.

3. Go to GitHub website and enable Pages service for the new repository.

4. Visit at:

Site Type	Site URL
User or Organization	https://<username>.github.io/
Project	https://<username>.github.io/project/

and enjoy!