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This day’s portion

My rig – Getting started with Github Pages and Jekyll

Thought I’d share my current website set up and some links I used to get to this stage. If you’re a developer/coder probably all a bit and?, but if you’re in that generalist hinterland it might be of some use. Knowing Git, Jekyll and how to use a command line is very handy, basic stuff.

TL;DR

I have my website stored in a Dropbox folder on my PC. I use Jekyll to build the site and then push it to Github Pages to publish it. The only cost is the domain name.

Jekyll

Jekyll’s a static site generator. This means your website is generated on your PC rather than on the server itself. Lots of advantages to this:

  • Your site serves flat HTML files (fast as there are no requests to a database)
  • Security (there’s no database to hack)
  • Portable (static site generators make HTML files: easy to copy, backup etc.)
  • No WYSIWYG (so WYMIWYG what you mark up is what you get). Use lovely Markdown instead.
  • Workflow quick (command line more efficient than GUI)

There are disadvantages:

  • No comments (because there’s no database to store them in), unless you use something like Disqus (yuck)
  • No writing and publishing on the go
  • Some technical knowledge required. The command line! If you’re on a Mac you’re in luck: Ruby and Ruby gems come preinstalled, if you’re not there’s a bit more work to do (especially in Linux).

I also like Hugo a lot – it’s got some excellent features like archetypes, better taxonomies than Jekyll, simple installation and a smart, automatically generated site structure. I only chose Jekyll because it works so well with Github Pages (see below).

Resources

  • WordPress to Jekyll Exporter. Makes it easy to move your content from WordPress into Jekyll (or any other static site generator).
  • Installing RVM. If you’re using Linux you’ll need something to help you install Ruby gems, such as Jekyll.

Git and Github

Git is version control software and Github is somewhere to host your version controlled software. Advantages:

  • Site backed up automatically
  • Site code publically available
  • Site versioned (roll back changes you make)
  • Work on your site anywhere you’ve installed Git (and Jekyll)
  • If you use Github Pages really easy and fast workflow

Disadvantages:

  • I found Git opaque. It’s essentially a programmer’s tool and programmers don’t communicate in layman’s terms very well. Once you’ve got it working it’s simple (git add, git commit, git push origin master and you’ve published your site), but getting to that stage took me some time.

Resources

How the heck do I use Github? is a step by step guide to getting started with Git and Github.

Dropbox

Becuase your site doesn’t have a database you can store the local version in a bog standard folder. Make that your Dropbox (or Box or Owncloud) folder. Advantages:

  • Back up your site again
  • Changes synched across any PCs you work on (saves on git pull)

Disadvantages:

None.

Github Pages for hosting

This is brilliant. Github Pages work with Jekyll, so all you do is create a repository for your website and push your whole Jekyll installation to it. Pages does the rest. Many advantages:

  • Brilliant, fast workflow: Write content in markdown → Build local site → Commit changes to Github repository
  • Free, top quality hosting
  • File compression and Content Delivery Network (CDN) included

Disadvantages:

  • You’re tied into Github (although because you’re publishing flat HTML it’s easy to move your site)
  • Needs some technical knowledge, especially when it comes to pointing your domain name to Github
  • Not all domain name providers allow www subdomain redirects to a web address (i.e. your-github-name.github.io), without which you lose the benefit of Github’s CDN

Resources

I’m pretty pleased with this setup: I have fast, reliable (and free!) hosting and I can edit, publish and copy my content with a minimum of fuss.