Motivating examples

[sstevens2]

@annefou @tobyhodges and I were discussing how the end product is not a beautiful website and how that might not be very motivating for developing a website using jekyll/gh-pages. We thought it might be a good idea to show them one or more example webpages at the beginning and the repos that generate them. This also then brings the idea that the repo makes the website up a bit sooner.

We would also say that the website we make we will build up piece by piece and while simpler than the examples it uses the same principles. Then when you (the learners) go to make your own website later you will be able to make use of a template that is more complicated because you are familiar with the foundational pieces.

We could then weave this throughout the lesson by featuring one example site that then we come back to after each episode and show the repo behind again and point out the index.md, _config.yml, _includes, _layouts, etc.

Would really like to hear from @JulianKarlBauer @anenadic and @unode about this idea too.

Idea from debriefing on the Nov 11 pilot.

[unode]

At some point we discussed enabling a GitHub's theme. We tested selecting one after some commits have been added and that worked. We could perhaps enable a theme at the end of the lesson, just as we mention pre-existing themes. This brings some level of eye candy and maybe raises the satisfaction level.

We could also show the final screenshot in the introduction as a motivator :star_struck: for what is about to come.

For convenience, previews of github's themes:

• Architect
• Cayman
• Dinky
• Hacker
• Leap-Day
• Merlot
• Midnight
• Minima
• Minimal
• Modernist
• Slate
• Tactile
• Time-Machine

[annefou]

@unode Yes I like the idea of finishing the lesson using a Github's theme but I think we said that it won't add all the necessary files in your repository (I haven't tried). What would be nice is to select a simple theme that would add all the config, layout files in your repo. Then we could go through as a final work along exercise.

[unode]

@annefou yes, you are right, it doesn't add files but since it's a built-in theme only the line in the config file is needed.

See the commit https://github.com/unode/jekyll-sandbox/commit/e284bd52a6ecad6aebd9b7401a617f202d961d98 that was generated by GitHub after selecting the theme in the repo settings. The rendered output at: https://unode.github.io/jekyll-sandbox/ has the theme enabled.

When I tried it the first time, Github replaced the simple README.md I had with some content. Didn't yet test if this happens when the README is mostly empty or if that's default behaviour for the first time a theme is selected for a repo.

Can anyone confirm if selecting a built-in GitHub theme at the end of the layout lesson works as expected?

[tobyhodges]

@unode my main concern with taking an approach like this is that, when we define our own page layouts later in the lesson, the connection to the theme will be broken. I may be wrong, but would like to check before we start changing things. Please could you try defining a layout (_layouts/default.html) in your jekyll-sandbox repo, apply it to a page, and report back on whether the theme styling was retained?

[unode]

@tobyhodges that's correct. Adding a _layouts/default.html overrides the GitHub theme.

[anenadic]

I agree that we should be aiming to weave in a real website somehow into the lesson. Maybe then showing a finished 'Capstone' screenshot of file structure of a repo would nicely fit with this. Perhaps something to think about for the next big iteration.

[tobyhodges]

Assigning this one to @anenadic as a follow-up to her work on #78

[tobyhodges]

At the March development sprint, it would be good to spend some time discussing what needs to be done to close this issue.

[sstevens2]

I think this is covered by the extras and the changes to the wrap-up section. Closing but feel free to reopen or file a new issue if you think there is more to be addressed.