A Jekyll blog might be more complicated than other approaches but it also offers high flexibility and many features.
You can install it yourself with:
gem install jekyll
Note
OSX users might need to update their RubyGems:
sudo gem update -system
Additionally there are many other options:
- Using
rdiscountormaruku - Using
pygmentsfor syntax highlighting - and this list could go on and on due to an amazing community support
For more information check the Jekyll Wiki
Posting
Posting with Jekyll doesn’t involve a nice interface but is still a lot more simple than other methods.
You can post with Markdown like me or use an alternative. Editing gets even better if you are on a Mac and you use a nice markdown editor like Mou.
This is how my Jekyll folder tree looks like:
root/
_includes/
disqus.html
...
_layouts/
default.html
post.html
_plugins/
*.rb
_posts/
*.markdown
_site/
...
css/
styles.css
syntax.css
images/
twitter.png
rss.png
github.png
javascript/
...
This might seem intimidating initially but after you’ve wrapped your head around it should be easy to understand.
_includes
You can place any .html files in here and then include them anywhere you want with the following tag:
{ % include FILE_NAME.html % }
This is especially helpful if you want to example use Disqus in your blog. I’ve included the javascript code in a disqus.html file and whenever I want to use it I can simply include it with the above tag.
_layouts
The files in here are going to be the basic building blocks of your site. At the top of this post:
layout: post
therefore i access the post.html file in _layouts. That post.html file is based of a default.html file. Therefore I don’t have to worry about any CSS or HTML after the site has been set up once.
_posts
All your posts go in here. Look at the end of this post to see how I have written this post.
Automatic Post Generation
thanks to Cody Krieger
Cody Krieger wrote a small little script: Execution: The script is going to look for a file named template.markdown in you Jekyll root directory. This template is a basic Jekyll post that you have to fill in with your content. More on this can be found at Cody’s Blog And if you are a Physics Lover like me you can easily embed Maxwell’s equations with LaTeX. \[\begin{aligned} \nabla \times \vec{\mathbf{B}} -\, \frac1c\, \frac{\partial\vec{\mathbf{E}}}{\partial t} & = \frac{4\pi}{c}\vec{\mathbf{j}} \\ \nabla \cdot \vec{\mathbf{E}} & = 4 \pi \rho \\ \nabla \times \vec{\mathbf{E}}\, +\, \frac1c\, \frac{\partial\vec{\mathbf{B}}}{\partial t} & = \vec{\mathbf{0}} \\ \nabla \cdot \vec{\mathbf{B}} & = 0 \end{aligned}\] You can also do some in-line equations, for example: \( P(E) = {n \choose k} p^k (1-p)^{ n-k } \). That way you can make your posts - whatever they might be about - look quite pleasing. Using Latex like this takes a little more than just writing down normal latex code but I am going to cover that in another post. But basically I am just using the awesome MathJax javascript library. Check out my tutorial on how I did it! The best thing is that you can just use Github Pages to deploy your blog: It is as simple as that and you are all set! Check out the original markdown of this post here.1
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#!/usr/bin/env ruby
# *********************************************
# Jekyll Post Generator Awesomeness
# by Cody Krieger (http://codykrieger.com)
# *********************************************
# Usage:
# % ./newpost.rb POST NAME
if ARGV.empty? or ARGV[0].downcase == "--help" or ARGV[0].downcase == "-h"
puts <<-USAGE
Usage:
% ./newpost.rb POST NAME
USAGE
exit (ARGV.empty? ? 1 : 0)
end
class String
# from ruby on rails (https://github.com/rails/rails)
# activesupport/lib/active_support/inflector/transliterate.rb
def parameterize(sep = '-')
# replace accented chars with their ascii equivalents
parameterized_string = self.dup
# Turn unwanted chars into the separator
parameterized_string.gsub!(/[^a-z0-9\-_]+/i, sep)
unless sep.nil? || sep.empty?
re_sep = Regexp.escape(sep)
# No more than one of the separator in a row.
parameterized_string.gsub!(/#{re_sep}{2,}/, sep)
# Remove leading/trailing separator.
parameterized_string.gsub!(/^#{re_sep}|#{re_sep}$/i, '')
end
parameterized_string.downcase
end
end
TEMPLATE = "template.markdown"
POSTS_DIR = "_posts"
# Get the title and use it to derive the new filename
title = ARGV.join(" ")
filename = "#{Time.now.strftime('%Y-%m-%d')}-#{title.parameterize}.markdown"
filepath = File.join(POSTS_DIR, filename)
# Load in the template and set the title
post_text = File.read(TEMPLATE)
post_text.gsub!('%%TITLE%%', title)
# Write out the post
post_file = File.open(filepath, 'w')
post_file.puts post_text
post_file.close
puts "Successfully created file => #{filepath}"
./newpost.rb Test Post
chmod u+x newpost.rb might be needed in order for the script to be executable.---
layout: post
title: %%TITLE%%
published: true
---
Hello, Jekyll!
\(\LaTeX\)
Post Scriptum
git push origin master
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