Setup: Tinker With The Template

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If you’re here, I presume you have already setup git, jekyll, ruby, and the underlying technologies required to get a jekyll project up and running.

0 Gem or Fork? 🐝

There are a couple of ways you can use the jekyll-bonsai template:

Way Why?
💎 Import the gem. This is ideal if you simply want to play around with config, data, and selectively override anything you want to change. If you use the gem, installing and updating jekyll-bonsai template’s new features or bug fixes is as easy as changing one line in your project.
🍴 Fork the template project. This exposes you directly to the code (namely the styles and layouts), which allows you to tinker with the html, css, javascript, or even ruby directly. This is useful if you want to customize the template heavily and don’t mind missing out on bug fixes or feature updates.

A. Fork 🐝

Head to the jekyll-bonsai repo and fork the project by clicking the “Fork” button in the upper-right.

Then head back to the clone instructions…

B. Gem 🐝

B1 Start A New Project 🐝

Start a new jekyll project:

$ jekyll new my-bonsai

B2 Add Imports 🐝

Add webrick to your Gemfile:

gem "webrick"

Next, add jekyll-bonsai:

gem "jekyll-bonsai"

Set the theme in _config.yml:

theme: jekyll-bonsai

B3 Add Necessary Files 🐝

  • Add these directories to your project:
    • _states/
    • _entries/
  • Add some markdown documents:
    • Add some states: state
    • Add at least a root.md entry: entry.
  • In _config.yml:
  • An index.md is required, but should have been automatically generated by jekyll new.

Back To Setup 🐝

And head back to the run instructions…