Markdown is a conversion process that takes simple text docuemnts and configuration files and turns them into a full static website directory. Github Pages can automatically generate a simple website based on Jekyll’s markdown language. Let’s look at a simple mapping of the default directories used by Jekyll, to get an idea of how markdown can make for an easy-to-update website.
This guide is based off the Jekyll Step by Step Tutorial, and is very helpful when getting started with markdown.
The basic file structure:
+-- assets (Site code and images that are imported to pages for formatting)
| +-- css
| +-- images
| +-- js
+-- _authors (Bio's about each contributing author)
+-- _data (Navigation markdown file)
+-- _includes (html pages to include in other pages, like the navigation bar)
+-- _layouts (html layouts for types of pages)
+-- _posts (blog post markdown files)
+-- _sass (main css style, as scss)
+-- _site (where the command-line ruby tool generates the site)
Let’s explore each folder a little bit more:
«««< HEAD
* assets
If you have javascript or images, they can go in the appropriate files. The CSS files are actually generated by the Jekyll conversion, from the SCSS files (see the _sass section).
=======
assets
If you have javascript or images, they can go in the appropriate files. The CSS files are actually generated by the Jekyll conversion, from the SCSS files (see the _sass section).
Looking for a research advisor in graduate school is scary. You probably don’t know the professors very well yet, and you might not even know what they like to do. They have whole research lives at this point, and understanding what they have done and what they are currenly working on requires reading articles and making a list of professors that might be doing the kind of research you are interested in. There are so many reasons to continue to procrastinate–but here’s some advice: just start talking.
If you are actually going to read through every professor’s last three papers, then great! Do it this weekend, and start talking next week. But if you don’t get through them this weekend (or don’t even start), then just start talking to people. It’s easy to let a whole term or two pass by while you try to be “prepared” to talk to professors. Getting in early on research, especially in a master’s program, is key to sucess. You’ll learn a lot about your professors just by talking them. And in all honesty, most professors will be delighted you just are interested in their area of research.
Most deparments have a list on their website about the “focus areas” of each professor. Find the top 3-5 professors that are doing something that you might be interested, and email them. If you have a small department, you could even just stop by their office and ask if there is a good time to talk to them about their research in the next week or two. Taking the initiative early on to connect will impress them more than remembering the titles to their last few papers. Once you have the meetings scheduled, that will give you a deadline to do a little background research. Reading the last few papers they authored is fabulous, but reading the abstracts of their last 10 years’ papers is more realistic and actually gives you a better idea of their breadth of work. Professors will often refer to research they worked on 10 or 15 years ago, and if some of their papers are strictly interesting to you, your time is better spent talking to them in person about what their interests are.
In summary, don’t let your to-do list get in the way of making real connections. Most professors are kind people that want to talk about their research. If you end up talking to one of the professors that has higher expectations of reading about their research beforehand, they will probably let you know, and then you’ll have a reason to come back after having done that.
Be prepared to be disappointed. Some of the most successful professors I have met told me that they did not get into many of the grad schools they applied to. Personally, I did not get into any of the PhD programs I applied to the first time around. However, if you’re smart about it, and understand a little about how academia works, then you can downgrade your stress from unbearable to just above annoying.
The first piece of advice I would offer is that you need to have a backup plan, or be extremely aggressive if you don’t. For me, my backup plan for getting a PhD was to get a master’s degree first, then reapply to PhD programs. This actually worked out really well for me, but I was transitioning from a different field (physics) into economics, so a master’s really had the potential to provide a great transition and give me more time to understand the research. For some, a backup plan might be to just work for another year or two in a related job, or to get a lengthy post-baccalaureate internship. Your backup plan is something that you won’t feel bad about doing, and that has the potential to make you look goo on your second round of graduate applications.
Now, if you are ready for grad school, and you want to get into grad schools…
BlackDoc is a two-column Jekyll theme that’s ideal for websites that require a master-detail layout for viewing of content. It’s based on Poole, the Jekyll butler, and the Hyde theme.
I needed a two-column layout with a scrolling sidebar to publish my code cheatsheets, and found the Hyde Jekyll theme to be a good starting theme. To complement the color scheme of my main website, I customised the theme to make it look great in black background and changed the sidebar to display scrolling content. I created this theme because I can’t seem to find any good Jekyll theme with a master-detail layout. Hopefully, someone will find this useful as well in their own projects.
Built on Poole
Poole is the Jekyll Butler, serving as a foundation for creating Jekyll themes. Poole-based themes, such as BlackDoc here, include the following:
Easily scalable text and component sizing with rem units in the CSS
Support for a wide gamut of HTML elements
Related posts (time-based, because Jekyll) below each post
Syntax highlighting using Pygments (the Python-based code snippet highlighter)
BlackDoc Features
In addition to the features of Poole and Hyde, BlackDoc theme adds the following:
Scrolling sidebar with a thin scrollbar to allow displaying of numerous top-level content.
Elements and classes of the Hyde theme were updated to look great in black background. Check out the Theme Styles to see the stylings used in the theme.
Check out the Readme of Poole and Hyde theme to learn more about the features.
Browser support
BlackDoc theme supports most modern browsers and only compatible with Internet Explorer 9 and above.
Download
BlackDoc is a free Jekyll theme and hosted with GitHub. Head to the GitHub repository to download.
Howdy! This is an example blog post that shows several types of HTML content supported in this theme.
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Curabitur blandit tempus porttitor. Nullam quis risus eget urna mollis ornare vel eu leo. Nullam id dolor id nibh ultricies vehicula ut id elit.
Etiam porta sem malesuada magna mollis euismod. Cras mattis consectetur purus sit amet fermentum. Aenean lacinia bibendum nulla sed consectetur.
Inline HTML elements
HTML defines a long list of available inline tags, a complete list of which can be found on the Mozilla Developer Network.
To bold text, use <strong>.
To italicize text, use <em>.
Abbreviations, like HTML should use <abbr>, with an optional title attribute for the full phrase.
Citations, like — Mark otto, should use <cite>.
Deleted text should use <del> and inserted text should use <ins>.
Superscript text uses <sup> and subscript text uses <sub>.
Most of these elements are styled by browsers with few modifications on our part.
Heading
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Code
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// Example can be run directly in your JavaScript console
// Create a function that takes two arguments and returns the sum of those arguments
varadder=newFunction("a","b","return a + b");// Call the function
adder(2,6);// > 8
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Gists via GitHub Pages
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Aenean eu leo quam. Pellentesque ornare sem lacinia quam venenatis vestibulum. Nullam quis risus eget urna mollis ornare vel eu leo. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec sed odio dui. Vestibulum id ligula porta felis euismod semper.
Lists
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Praesent commodo cursus magna, vel scelerisque nisl consectetur et.
Donec id elit non mi porta gravida at eget metus.
Nulla vitae elit libero, a pharetra augue.
Donec ullamcorper nulla non metus auctor fringilla. Nulla vitae elit libero, a pharetra augue.
Vestibulum id ligula porta felis euismod semper.
Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.
Maecenas sed diam eget risus varius blandit sit amet non magna.
Cras mattis consectetur purus sit amet fermentum. Sed posuere consectetur est at lobortis.
HyperText Markup Language (HTML)
The language used to describe and define the content of a Web page
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
Used to describe the appearance of Web content
JavaScript (JS)
The programming language used to build advanced Web sites and applications
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Images
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Tables
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Name
Upvotes
Downvotes
Totals
21
23
Alice
10
11
Bob
4
3
Charlie
7
9
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