Instant History Blog

This is Michael Morisy’s personal blog built with Jekyll and hosted on GitHub Pages.

Quick Start

Writing a New Post

  1. Create a new file in the _posts folder
  2. Name it using the format: YYYY-MM-DD-post-title.md
  3. Add the following front matter at the top:


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---
layout: post
title: "Your Post Title"
subtitle: "Optional subtitle"
date: 2024-01-15 10:00:00
tags: [tag1, tag2]
---
  1. Write your content using Markdown

Markdown Features

This blog supports enhanced markdown features:

  • GitHub Flavored Markdown: Tables, strikethrough, task lists
  • Code syntax highlighting: Use triple backticks with language identifier
  • Emojis: Type :emoji_name: (e.g., :smile:)
  • @mentions: Link to GitHub users with @username
  • Footnotes: Use [^1] for footnote markers

Example:



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This is some text with a footnote[^1].

[^1]: This is the footnote content.

Local Development

  1. Install Ruby and Bundler
  2. Run bundle install to install dependencies
  3. Run bundle exec jekyll serve to start local server
  4. Visit http://localhost:4000

Deployment

The site automatically deploys to GitHub Pages when you push to the main branch.

Features

  • SEO Optimization: Automatic meta tags and Open Graph data
  • Reading Time: Shows estimated reading time for each post
  • Sitemap: Automatically generated at /sitemap.xml
  • RSS Feed: Available at /feed.xml
  • Syntax Highlighting: Beautiful code blocks with line numbers
  • Social Sharing: Twitter and Facebook share buttons
  • Comments: Configured for Staticman (requires setup)

Configuration

Main settings are in _config.yml:

  • Site title and description
  • Author information
  • Social media links
  • Google Analytics
  • Comment system settings

Tips

  • Use <!--more--> in posts to set excerpt break point
  • Add image: /path/to/image.jpg in front matter for social media previews
  • Use redirect_from: /old-url/ to redirect old URLs
  • Posts with future dates won’t be published until that date

Troubleshooting

If the site doesn’t update after pushing:

  1. Check GitHub Actions tab for build errors
  2. Ensure post filenames are correctly formatted
  3. Verify front matter YAML is valid
  4. Check that post dates aren’t in the future