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visdesignlab / visdesignlab.github.io

https://vdl.sci.utah.edu/
BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" License
6 stars 21 forks source link

simplify setup & build process #26

Closed mckennapsean closed 7 years ago

mckennapsean commented 7 years ago

currently, the project requires many steps & gems for setup, which is a particular pain on Windows but unnecessary for what is in the website.

I propose removing unneeded / unused gems. Are there any, aside from Jekyll (and plugins), that others think is essential and in use? I am not sure what is just leftovers from the Caleydo site...

What do folks think of NPM scripts? I always have NPM around and use it for web-stuff. Just wanted to check first before proposing anything in that regard. Otherwise, we can just have people do a lot of work manually. Either way.

mckennapsean commented 7 years ago

The Gemfile is mostly not needed. To get a site build working, you only need to install Ruby (maybe DevKit) and then gem install jekyll. Currently, you have to use bundler due to this gem file, complicating matters and making installation much trickier. A more complex setup is to use the GitHub Pages gem (but this is probably overkill).

The Rakefile has Caleydo-specific things, about deploying and publishing, whereas we just use GitHub Pages for hosting. There is one useful tidbit in there about checking links - we could use other tools for this too. I would recommend better cross-platform support, as certain Ruby tools are tricky. I have had the best luck with NPM (though that comes with its own mess).

Arguably, what we have may work fine without other scripts for cleaning & checking links - but the current Gemfile is tricky to work with.

mckennapsean commented 7 years ago

Jekyll requires use of bundler once it sees a Gemfile. Bundler is useful if you do a lot of Ruby programming/applications.

mckennapsean commented 7 years ago

okay, this is because Jekyll actually, by default, suggests using Bundler. so maybe keep that, but there are extra dependencies (and out-of-date ones) that should be changed. perhaps switch to the github-pages gem instead. all very complex...

mckennapsean commented 7 years ago

done. removed the files, and updated readme to better explain how to install correctly. we can always revert some of these files if they are still necessary and in use by someone, but no one I talked to used them.