A simple Jekyll post.

jekyll-example.markdown

layout	title	published	tags
post	Jekyll Blogging	true	jekyll programming latex blogging

Jekyll blogging might be more complicated than other approaches but it also offers high flexibility and many features.

You can install it yourself with:

gem install jekyll

Note

OSX users might need to update their RubyGems:

sudo gem update -system

Additionally there are many other options:

• Using rdiscount or maruku
• Using pygments for syntax highlighting
• and this list could go on and on due to an amazing community support

For more information check the Jekyll Wiki

Posting

Posting with Jekyll doesnt involve a nice interface but is still a lot more simple than other methods.

You can post with Markdown like me or use an alternative.

Editing gets even better if you are on a Mac and you use a nice markdown editor like Mou

This is how my jekyll folder tree looks like:

root/
    _includes/
        disqus.html
        ...
    _layouts/
        default.html
        post.html
    _plugins/
        *.rb
    _posts/
        *.markdown
    _site/
        ...
    css/
        styles.css
        syntax.css
    images/
        twitter.png
        rss.png
        github.png
    javascript/
        ...

This might seem intimitaing initially but after you've wrapped your head around it should be easy to understand.

_includes

You can place any .html files in here and then include them anywehre you want with the following tag:

{% include FILE_NAME.html %}

This is especially helpful if you want to example use disqus in your blog. I've included the javascript code in a disqus.html file and whenever I want to use it I can simply include it with the above tag.

_layouts

Files in here

_posts

All your blog posts go in here

Automatic Post Generation

thanks to Cody Krieger

Cody Krieger wrote a small little script:

<script src="https://gist.github.com/823013.js?file=newpost.rb"></script>

Execution:

./newpost.rb Test Post

chmod u+x newpost.rb might be needed in order for the script to be executable.

The script is going to look for a file named template.markdown in you jekyll root directory. This template is a basic jekyll post that you have to fill in with your content.

<script src="https://gist.github.com/823013.js?file=template.markdown"></script>

more on this can be found at Cody's Blog

\( \LaTeX \)

And if you are a Physics Lover like me you can easily embed Maxwell's equations with LaTeX.

\[ \begin{aligned} \nabla \times \vec{\mathbf{B}} -\, \frac1c\, \frac{\partial\vec{\mathbf{E}}}{\partial t} & = \frac{4\pi}{c}\vec{\mathbf{j}} \\ \nabla \cdot \vec{\mathbf{E}} & = 4 \pi \rho \\ \nabla \times \vec{\mathbf{E}}\, +\, \frac1c\, \frac{\partial\vec{\mathbf{B}}}{\partial t} & = \vec{\mathbf{0}} \\ \nabla \cdot \vec{\mathbf{B}} & = 0 \end{aligned} \]

or you can do some inline implementations for example here : \( P(E) = {n \choose k} p^k (1-p)^{ n-k } \) or if you have a long paragrpah in another line \( 0_{2} - 1_{2} \) so you can make your posts, about whatever they might be, look really fancy and nice.

Using Latex like this takes a little more than just writing down normal latex code but I am going to cover that in another post. But basically I am just using the MathJax library with some configuration changes.

So how does this look?

The source for this post:

<script src="https://gist.github.com/1314267.js"> </script>

Nice, easy and simple, isn't it?

Post Scriptum

The best thing is that you can just use Github Pages to deply you blog so a simple:

git push origin master

is enough and you are all set.