This website is built from the template of academicpages/academicpages.github.io and my operating system is macOS. It was my first time using Jekyll so I took around 1h to set up the environment even though I am familiar with Git and installation packages on MacOS. The target of this post is to summarize my steps and can be referred to by readers with limited computer knowledge.

Instructions

Github Setting

1. Register a GitHub account if you don’t have one and confirm your e-mail (required!)
2. Fork this repository by clicking the “fork” button in the top right.
3. Clone your forked repo under your repos.
4. Go to the repository’s settings (the rightmost item in the tabs that start with “Code”, should be below “Unwatch”). Rename the repository “[your GitHub username].github.io” under the setting, which will also be your website’s URL.
5. Check the status by going to the repository “Settings”. In the “Pages” section, choose source “Deploy from a branch” and select “master”, “/root” under “Branch”. Click “save”. See more info at academicpages.github.io

Package installation

open terminal in your apps. follow the following tutorial to install brew, jekyll and so on: Jekyll Installation for macOS. You should also install bundle after the above setup By running:

gem install jekyll bundler

Debug info

error: bundler: failed to load command: jekyll (/Users/jrdnbwmn/.rbenv/versions/3.0.2/bin/jekyll) eval (eval at ((execjs):1:213), :1:10): TypeError: Cannot read property 'version' of undefined (ExecJS::ProgramError)

• solution command: bundle add webrick

For other error: you can search on stackoverflow or ask chatgpt using a prompt like’debug …’

Run command in your terminal

1. run cd path-to-your-cloned repo/ (replace path with your own path)
2. Run bundle clean to clean up the directory (no need to run --force)
3. Run bundle install to install ruby dependencies. If you get errors, delete Gemfile.lock and try again.
4. Run bundle exec jekyll liveserve to generate the HTML and serve it from localhost:4000 the local server will automatically rebuild and refresh the pages on

   Debug info

   error: when running ‘bundle exec jekyll liveserve’

   • solution command: bundle exec jekyll serve

Edit your project

• If you are familiar with Git, it is recommended to edit all the contents on your local computer and then push your project to the remote repository.
• If you are not familiar with Git, you can edit the files directly in the web user interface.

For both cases, it is recommended to read the instructions provided by academicpages/academicpages.github.io. You do not need to learn a new programming language. Simply follow their example files to create your own website content. If you are not familiar with Markdown, you can ask ChatGPT to assist you in formatting the files into Markdown format. Notion is also a good tool to generate Markdown format files.

If you have any additional inquiries, the first step is to consult ChatGPT or utilize Google for assistance. Should you encounter further difficulties, please don’t hesitate to send me an email. Make sure to provide a thorough description of the error information and include details about your operating system.

If you are not fond of this template, you can explore other templates on GitHub that suit your preferences. Many personal websites are built using jekyll, and you typically won’t need to reinstall any additional packages for them.