The aim of this post is to give simple instructions on how to write a blog post for this web site. Mostly because the instructions I could find where all wrong in some respect!

  1. Ensure you are logged into GitHub.

  2. Navigate to https://github.com/gretton-dann/gretton-dann.github.io/tree/master/_posts

  3. Click ‘Create new file’

  4. In the box title “Name your file…” put in a file name in the following format: YYYY-MM-DD-hyphen-separeted-title.markdown. See other files in that directory for examples. Don’t use spaces in the filename.

  5. In the large text box add the following:

---
layout: post
title:  "TITLE"
date:   YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS +0000
categories: CAT-1 CAT-2
---

Where:

  • TITLE: Should be the blog title
  • YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS: Should be the current date
  • CAT-#: Are category names. You can make these up!

  1. Under that enter your blog post. The text is in Markdown format. Instructions on the Mastering Markdown page.

    Note there is a Preview button which will give a basic idea of how the page will look. But it is not 100% accurate.

  2. In the box ‘Commit new file’ enter a short title for the commit. “Add blog post for YYYY-MM-DD” is fine. Also add a longer description if you feel it is necessary.

  3. Ensure “Commit directly to the master branch” is selected. (Yes this is extremely bad practice - but I did say “simple”).

  4. Click the green “Commit new file” button.

  5. Wait up to 20 minutes for the blog to land on the homepage.