Getting Started with Github Pages - NaBloPoMo 3
Following on from NaBloPoMo day 1 & day 2... There are tonnes of great getting started resources for github-pages and Jekyll, but the short gist is:
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Start with a fork of an existing Jekyll/github-pages repo (I can highly recommend Minimal Mistakes ). This isn't mandatory, and you can certainly start with a blank slate, but starting from an existing repo can greatly speed up the learning curve.... and minimise some of those early mistakes.
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Rename that Fork to be a repo called mygituser.github.io, so mine is bseymour.github.io
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Clone a local working copy, and setup the remote such that commits go to that gh-pages repo
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Install the gem 'github-pages' to ensure that your local environment mirrors the live gh-pages environment, to avoid unpleasant surprises when deploying to live.
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Be very careful about using plugins, as gh-pages supports only a few
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Experiment locally, push live early, and develop in the open.
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Use the livereload plugin locally to auto-re-generate after changes.
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(Optional), setup the CNAME for your own domain e.g. For me bseymour.com -> bseymour.github.io
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(Optional) Consider fronting your site with a CDN. I used this as an opportunity to Cloudflare for the first time, who thanks to them also being a DNS provider can offer some simpler-than-usual options for serving your site over SSL. More details here
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Experiment, explore and have fun.
