Jekyll

Jekyll is a blog-aware, static site generator. Rather that relying on a server side scripting language and a database, as many CMS solutions often do, Jekyll allows you to quickly deploy your site to any web tree that can serve static files (perfect for the Object Store!). Jekyll provides a templating language and data format that allows you to design your site using HTML, CSS, and Javascript and then render in the site's content. This separation of design and content allows for easy editing and reuse of your own custom desgin templates and those made by others. When ready to update the content, Jekyll compiles your templates and content files into full HTML!

A great example of a Jekyll-generated site is the UMIACS Intranet page!

Getting Started

These instructions are taken from the official Jekyll quickstart guide.

1. Install all the prerequisites to run Jekyll.
2. Install the jekyll and bundler gems.

   gem install jekyll bundler

3. Create a new Jekyll site at ./mysite (use a better name of your choosing).

   jekyll new mysite

4. Change into your new directory.

   cd mysite

5. Build the site and make it available on a local server.

   bundle exec jekyll serve

6. Browse to http://localhost:4000

Publishing a Jekyll Site

We have instructions to get started here on how to publish your site to the Object Store. It can be configured to publish automatically every time you push updates to GitLab.