Customize

Here we will give you some tips on how to customize the website.

Project structure

The project is structured as follows, focusing on the main components that you will need to modify:

.
├── 📄 404.html: 404 page (page not found)
├── 📂 assets/: contains the assets that are displayed in the website
│   └── 📂 json/
    │   └── 📄 resume.json: CV in JSON format (https://jsonresume.org/)
├── 📂 _bibliography/
│   └── 📄 papers.bib: bibliography in BibTeX format
├── 📄 _config.yml: the configuration file of the template
├── 📂 _data/: contains some of the data used in the template
│   ├── 📄 cv.yml: CV in YAML format, used when assets/json/resume.json is not found
│   └── 📄 repositories.yml: users and repositories info in YAML format
├── 📂 _includes/: contains code parts that are included in the main HTML file
├── 📂 _layouts/: contains the layouts to choose from in the frontmatter of the Markdown files
├── 📂 _news/: the news that will appear in the news section in the about page
├── 📄 news.html: defines the news section layout in the about page
├── 📂 _pages/: contains the pages of the website that are shown in the header
├── 📂 _posts/: contains the blog posts
├── 📂 _projects/: contains the projects
└── 📂 _sass/: contains the SASS files that define the style of the website
    ├── 📄 _base.scss: base style of the website
    ├── 📄 _cv.scss: style of the CV page
    ├── 📄 _distill.scss: style of the Distill articles
    ├── 📄 _layout.scss: style of the overall layout
    ├── 📄 _themes.scss: themes colors and a few icons
    └── 📄 _variables.scss: variables used in the SASS files

Configuration

The configuration file _config.yml contains the main configuration of the website. Most of the settings is self-explanatory and we also tried to add as much comments as possible. If you have any questions, please check if it was not already answered in the FAQ.

Note that the url and baseurl settings are used to generate the links of the website, as explained in the install instructions.

All changes made to this file are only visible after you rebuild the website. That means that you need to run bundle exec jekyll serve --lsi again if you are running the website locally or push your changes to GitHub if you are using GitHub Pages. All other changes are visible immediately, you only need to refresh the page.

Modifying the CV information

There are currently 2 different ways of generating the CV page content. The first one is by using a json file located in assets/json/resume.json. It is a known standard for creating a CV programmatically. The second one, currently used as a fallback when the json file is not found, is by using a yml file located in _data/cv.yml. This was the original way of creating the CV page content and since it is more human readable than a json file we decided to keep it as an option.

What this means is, if there is no resume data defined in _config.yml and loaded via a json file, it will load the contents of _data/cv.yml. If you want to use the _data/cv.yml file as the source of your CV, you must delete the assets/json/resume.json file.

Modifying the user and repository information

The user and repository information is defined in _data/repositories.yml. You can add as many users and repositories as you want. Both informations are used in the repositories section.

Creating new pages

You can create new pages by adding new Markdown files in the _pages directory. The easiest way to do this is to copy an existing page and modify it. You can choose the layout of the page in the frontmatter of the Markdown file. You can also add new layouts in the _layouts directory if you feel the need for it.

Creating new blog posts

To create a new blog post, you can add a new Markdown file in the _posts directory. The name of the file must follow the format YYYY-MM-DD-title.md. The easiest way to do this is to copy an existing blog post and modify it. Note that some blog posts have optional fields in the frontmatter that are used to enable specific behaviors or functions.

If you want to create blog posts that are not ready to be published, but you want to track it with git, you can create a _drafts directory and store them there.

Creating new projects

You can create new projects by adding new Markdown files in the _projects directory. The easiest way to do this is to copy an existing project and modify it.

Adding some news

You can add news in the about page by adding new Markdown files in the _news directory. There are currently two types of news: inline news and news with a link. News with a link take you to a new page while inline news are displayed directly in the about page. The easiest way to create yours is to copy an existing news and modify it.

Adding Collections

This Jekyll theme implements collections to let you break up your work into categories. The theme comes with two default collections: news and projects. Items from the news collection are automatically displayed on the home page. Items from the projects collection are displayed on a responsive grid on projects page.

You can easily create your own collections, apps, short stories, courses, or whatever your creative work is. To do this, edit the collections in the _config.yml file, create a corresponding folder, and create a landing page for your collection, similar to _pages/projects.md.

Adding a new publication

To add publications create a new entry in the _bibliography/papers.bib file. You can find the BibTeX entry of a publication in Google Scholar by clicking on the quotation marks below the publication title, then clicking on “BibTeX”, or also in the conference page itself. By default, the publications will be sorted by year and the most recent will be displayed first. You can change this behavior and more in the Jekyll Scholar section in _config.yml file.

You can add extra information to a publication, like a PDF file in the assets/pdfs/ directory and add the path to the PDF file in the BibTeX entry with the pdf field. Some of the supported fields are: abstract, altmetric, arxiv, bibtex_show, blog, code, dimensions, doi, eprint, html, isbn, pdf, pmid, poster, slides, supp, video, and website.

Author annotation

In publications, the author entry for yourself is identified by string array scholar:last_name and string array scholar:first_name in _config.yml. For example, if you have the following entry in your _config.yml:

scholar:
  last_name: [Einstein]
  first_name: [Albert, A.]

If the entry matches one form of the last names and the first names, it will be underlined. Keep meta-information about your co-authors in _data/coauthors.yml and Jekyll will insert links to their webpages automatically. The co-author data format is as follows,

"Adams":
  - firstname: ["Edwin", "E.", "E. P.", "Edwin Plimpton"]
    url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Plimpton_Adams

"Podolsky":
  - firstname: ["Boris", "B.", "B. Y.", "Boris Yakovlevich"]
    url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Podolsky

"Rosen":
  - firstname: ["Nathan", "N."]
    url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Rosen

"Bach":
  - firstname: ["Johann Sebastian", "J. S."]
    url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Sebastian_Bach

  - firstname: ["Carl Philipp Emanuel", "C. P. E."]
    url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Philipp_Emanuel_Bach

If the entry matches one of the combinations of the last names and the first names, it will be highlighted and linked to the url provided.

Buttons (through custom bibtex keywords)

There are several custom bibtex keywords that you can use to affect how the entries are displayed on the webpage:

abbr: Adds an abbreviation to the left of the entry. You can add links to these by creating a venue.yaml-file in the _data folder and adding entries that match.
abstract: Adds an “Abs” button that expands a hidden text field when clicked to show the abstract text
altmetric: Adds an Altmetric badge (Note: if DOI is provided just use true, otherwise only add the altmetric identifier here - the link is generated automatically)
arxiv: Adds a link to the Arxiv website (Note: only add the arxiv identifier here - the link is generated automatically)
bibtex_show: Adds a “Bib” button that expands a hidden text field with the full bibliography entry
blog: Adds a “Blog” button redirecting to the specified link
code: Adds a “Code” button redirecting to the specified link
dimensions: Adds a Dimensions badge (Note: if DOI or PMID is provided just use true, otherwise only add the Dimensions’ identifier here - the link is generated automatically)
html: Inserts an “HTML” button redirecting to the user-specified link
pdf: Adds a “PDF” button redirecting to a specified file (if a full link is not specified, the file will be assumed to be placed in the /assets/pdf/ directory)
poster: Adds a “Poster” button redirecting to a specified file (if a full link is not specified, the file will be assumed to be placed in the /assets/pdf/ directory)
slides: Adds a “Slides” button redirecting to a specified file (if a full link is not specified, the file will be assumed to be placed in the /assets/pdf/ directory)
supp: Adds a “Supp” button to a specified file (if a full link is not specified, the file will be assumed to be placed in the /assets/pdf/ directory)
website: Adds a “Website” button redirecting to the specified link

You can implement your own buttons by editing the _layouts/bib.html file.

Changing theme color

A variety of beautiful theme colors have been selected for you to choose from. The default is purple, but you can quickly change it by editing the --global-theme-color variable in the _sass/_themes.scss file. Other color variables are listed there as well. The stock theme color options available can be found at _sass/_variables.scss. You can also add your own colors to this file assigning each a name for ease of use across the template.