When I launched the new version of my blog, I wanted things to be as simple as possible. No CMS, no admin UI, no rich-text editor, no databases, etc. Something I could edit with any generic text editor, add some simple markup language and deliver. That’s when I found Jekyll.
What Jekyll is
Jekyll is a static site generator written in Ruby. It generates static html pages. The page is presented through several templates and then fires the whole site, were articles are written in a text markup language like Textile or Markdown through the liquid converters to generate fully generated compiled website
On a side note, GitHubPages are powered by Jekyll. Therefore I have a simple workflow with fewer dependencies, no server-side language nor database and, best of all, it’s hosted on GitHub. Also, I can direct my blogsite domain by creating a CNAME file.
Running Jekyll on Windows
While Windows is not officially supported, it is possible to get Jekyll running on Windows. Thanks are offered to Julian Thilo, who has written up instructions to get Jekyll to work. Installation was simple and I had no issues whatsoever.
I dug a bit further after the installation and decided to install Ruby-based Rouge, which is faster and easier to install than Pigments, which requires Python installation. They are both syntax highlighters.
Jekyll site
Here’s how to get a boilerplate Jekyll site up and running.
~ $ gem install jekyll
~ $ jekyll new myblog
~ $ cd myblog
~/myblog $ jekyll serve
Now browse to http://localhost:4000An overview of the initial can be seen through directory structure.
Deploying Jekyll to GitHub Pages
Setting up a GitHubPages website couldn’t be simpler. It consists only of creating a repo with a name in the format username.github.com. By the way, a GitHub account is required.
- You can push raw Jekyll source to your repo and GitHub Pages will automagically compile it through Jekyll.
Customize your blog with your name, avatar and social links by editing the _config.yml file and then you should be able to publish your first blog post by editing an markdown (.md) file. Edit /_posts/XX-hello-world.md to publish your first blog post.
Conclusion
That’s my introduction to Jekyll, the simple, blog aware, static-site generator. If you are trying to build a blog and are having a problem getting something to work or want to know why I set up something in a certain way, please ask a question in the comments below.