Today let’s talk about how to set up a github-pages website. I did not find it as straightforward as I might have hoped, so am leaving my notes here in case it helps someone else down the line.

setup

The following instructions are intended for a MacOS user who wants to build a github pages based website but also run locally to test before pushing to github pages.

Starting install docs of use:

  • Jekyll and Github pages instructions here
  • Jekyll install instructions here
  • Follow macOS version instructions here

installing ruby/jekyll

Notes on installing ruby:

  • Jekyll will require ruby >= 2.5
  • I installed with homebrew first, but then used rbenv for the final working set up locally. Unsure if you need both or not, but would recommend definitely using rbenv setup.

Notes on installing gems

  • Follow the jekyll install instructions for user install.
  • Note that your ruby version may be slightly different from the gem ruby version folder. Ie, ruby verion can be 2.7.1 while the folder will be 2.7.0.

My final bash profile was modified with the following:

export PATH="/usr/local/opt/ruby/bin:$PATH"
export PATH="$HOME/.gem/ruby/2.7.0/bin:$PATH"
export GEM_HOME=$HOME/gems
export PATH=$HOME/gems/bin:$PATH

eval "$(rbenv init -)"

setting up for github-pages

First, build a github repo as described in the jekyll/github-pages instructions. Then, run jekyll new . in the root folder. Voila, a jekyll website!

testing locally

To run locally, directions here, run bundle exec jekyll serve to get it running on your local computer. Of note, the Gemfile says you want to uncomment the github-pages line in the Gemfile to make it work with github-pages, but I didn’t do that and it seems to be running fine online…

themes

Next to play with: themes. Github pages supports these themes Most of them do not look great, I think I’ll be looking to customize another way.

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How ‘accurate’ is this post: 7/10. How ‘precise’ is this post: 3/10.