I had experimented with githup pages a bit since some time ago, but today I decided to do it finally, instead (or, alas, after) starting yet another blog on blogger… I never go there and forget about the blogs I have started there (pepmath.blogspot.com and til-this.blogspot.com) and elsewhere (make the list …)

I first created my m-f-h.github.io repo from scratch and put some content there, mainly to experiment with layout, responsive sidebars, etc.

But then I figured it would be tiresome to re-install the jekyll stuff as I already had done for another project (our journal JNEEA). So I googled (resp. braved) and found some “template” for a github + Jekyll powered blog, which I decided to give a try. (It had enough features to inspire me for the first “extensions” I will do, yet not too much as the earlier try I had given with a nice looking, but somewhat bloated Jekyll theme.)

Some remarks (for my own records…)

I’ll try to write down what I understand (possibly incorrectly) about the structure of this site.

The basic Jekyll config file /_config.yml

In this file, we find:

title: "MFH's github pages and blog" #etc.
#(goes on with author, description, email, twittername etc.)

theme: "minimal" # is that even a theme? TODO: link to docs
defaults:
    - scope:
        path: ""
        type: post
      values:
        tags: Other

I think the /_config.yml file could define a default layout (TODO: check & link the docs), but doesn’t, so far. (The only default it defines is the tag “Other” for “nodes” (what is the correct term? pages and posts…?) of type post)

Update: had a look at Github Action Build Log and there was a warning, default for posts is no more post but now posts.

page layout

The page layouts are defined in /_layouts, but for the moment, post.html is the only entry there.

These “layout” HTML files include some additional header stuff, but not the basic HTML header (<head><title>...)

Essentially it starts with a <header> section which has <h1>{\{ page.title ... inside.

Then it has two <div> sections,

  • one with {\% include sharelinks.html %} (these are the social media links defined in /_config.yml and shown in the footer, I think),

  • the other with {\{ content }} {\% include navlinks.html %} (the latter makes a navbar “[<- prev.post next post->]” below the contents.)

  • These two include files are specified in /_includes.
  • There is another file head.html which contains the HTML <HEAD> (with several <LINK> sections etc., but nothing else.)

posts and pages

  • The posts are the .md files in /_posts
  • Where is that subdir specified?
  • Where else does Jekyll look for other pages?
    • Obviously it does look for .md pages at the root.
    • Can we put static pages in the /_posts subdir?
    • Can we make arbitrary folders, and Jekyll will look everywhere? If we want to “hide” a file but not delete it, can/must we create a special folder and list it in .gitignore?

    [Is that a feature of jekyll-sitemap listed in /_config.yml ?])

  • the static homepage (/index.md) has no YAML header at all. Does it also use the post.html layout ?
  • the “Blog archive” page (/archive.md) does have a YAML header that has layout: default. Does that mean that it should :
    • use a default.html layout which however is not defined?
    • use a default layout that should be defined in /config.yml but isn’t ?
    • use as layout the only one that is defined (or if it weren’t the only one, then the alphabetically first one?)
    • the blog posts (.md files in /_posts) do use the post.html layout, even without a YML header. (How do they know?)

Some open questions/TODOs:

  • I will have to create a second “layout” for static pages that are not part of the blog.
  • In order that both, these pages and the blog posts, keep a uniform appearance, I guess I’ll put the common stuff in a new _includes file
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