If you’re a developer looking to showcase your work or create a personal website, Jekyll can be a great choice. Jekyll is a static site generator that allows you to build fast, efficient, and easily maintainable websites. In this article, we’ll walk you through the process of creating your own Jekyll personal website.
Step 1: Install Jekyll
To get started with Jekyll, you’ll need to have Ruby installed on your system. Once you have Ruby set up, installing Jekyll is as simple as running a single command:
gem install jekyll
Step 2: Create a New Jekyll Site
After installing Jekyll, you can create a new Jekyll site by running the following command:
jekyll new my-website
This will create a new directory named “my-website” with a basic Jekyll site structure.
Step 3: Customize Your Website
Now that you have a Jekyll site, you can start customizing it to fit your needs. The main configuration file for your site is _config.yml. Open this file in a text editor and modify the settings to your liking.
You can specify the title, description, theme, and various other options in the configuration file. Take some time to explore the available options and make changes according to your preferences.
Step 4: Choose a Theme
Jekyll offers a wide range of themes that you can use to give your website a professional and polished look. You can find Jekyll themes on websites like GitHub or JekyllThemes.io.
Once you’ve found a theme you like, download or clone its repository and copy the theme files into your Jekyll site’s directory. Update the configuration file (_config.yml) to specify the chosen theme.
Step 5: Create Pages and Posts
Jekyll uses Markdown and Liquid templates to create content for your website. Markdown is a simple and lightweight markup language, while Liquid is a template engine that allows for dynamic content generation.
Create pages by adding Markdown files (with a .md extension) in the root directory of your Jekyll site. Each Markdown file can have a YAML front matter section at the beginning to specify metadata like the title, layout, or tags.
To create blog posts, create a _posts directory and add Markdown files with the filename format YYYY-MM-DD-title.md. Again, you can include YAML front matter to provide additional information about each post.
Step 6: Build and Test Your Website
To see your website in action, you need to build it using Jekyll. Open a terminal, navigate to your Jekyll site’s directory, and run the following command:
jekyll build
This will generate a static version of your website in a _site directory. To preview your site locally, run:
jekyll serve
You can then open your web browser and visit http://localhost:4000 to see your website.
Step 7: Deploy Your Website
Once you’re happy with your Jekyll website, it’s time to deploy it. Jekyll generates a static site, so you can host it on any web server or service that supports static websites.
Popular options for hosting Jekyll sites include GitHub Pages, Netlify, and Amazon S3. Choose the hosting provider that suits your needs and follow their instructions to deploy your site.
Conclusion
Creating a Jekyll personal website for developers is a straightforward process. By following the steps outlined in this article, you can have your own professional-looking website up and running in no time. Jekyll’s simplicity and flexibility make it an excellent choice for showcasing your work and building your online presence. Happy coding and designing!
