EMAC Jekyll Site

Static website for the EMAC group, built with Jekyll. The site uses the Beautiful Jekyll theme via remote_theme (the theme code is not vendored in this repo).

Local Development

• Prerequisites

  • Ruby 3.3 and Bundler installed
  • No Node.js required

• Install dependencies

  • bundle install

• Run the dev server

  • bundle exec jekyll serve --livereload
  • Open http://127.0.0.1:4000

• Build for production

  • bundle exec jekyll build
  • Output is generated in _site/

• Optional: build against multiple Jekyll versions (theme compatibility)

  • bundle exec appraisal install
  • bundle exec appraisal jekyll build

Project Structure

• _config.yml — main site config; references the theme via remote_theme and configures plugins.
• _posts/ — blog posts (YYYY-MM-DD-title.md).
• Root content pages — index.html, people.md, research.*, tags.html, 404.html, feed.xml.
• _data/ui-text.yml — site copy.
• assets/ — static assets; store images in assets/img/.
• _students/ — collection of student pages (one Markdown file per student).
• No local _layouts/ or _includes/ — the theme provides templates. Only add files there if you need to override specific templates.

Configuration

• Navigation (navbar-links), social links, colors, analytics, and comments are configured in _config.yml.
• Prefer absolute asset paths like /assets/img/....
• Update any image references in page front‑matter to match actual filenames in assets/img/.

Students collection

• Add a new student by creating a Markdown file in _students/, e.g. _students/jane-doe.md:

  ---
  title: Jane Doe
  role: PhD Student
  email: [email protected]
  website: https://janedoe.example.com
  # Optional image stored at /assets/img/students/jane-doe.jpg
  # photo: /assets/img/students/jane-doe.jpg
  ---
  Short bio or description.

• Each student page is generated at /people/<filename>/ and the homepage and People page automatically list all current students and alumni with links to their pages.

• Student cards fall back to /assets/img/avatar-icon.png if no photo is provided.

Marking alumni

• To show someone under Alumni, add alumni: true in their front matter:

  ---
  title: John Smith
  role: PhD, 2024
  alumni: true
  ---

• Current students should either omit alumni or set it to false.

Continuous Integration

• GitHub Actions builds the site via .github/workflows/ci.yml.
• CI installs dependencies, sets a preview baseurl, and builds with Appraisal against Jekyll 3 and 4.

Troubleshooting

• If jekyll serve fails on Ruby 3+, ensure webrick is installed (included in the Gemfile).
• Port already in use? Run with --port 4001 or stop the existing server.