---
title: Getting started with the Documentation Theme for Jekyll
keywords: sample homepage
tags: [getting_started]
sidebar: mydoc_sidebar
permalink: index.html
summary: These brief instructions will help you get started quickly with the theme. The other topics in this help provide additional information and detail about working with other aspects of this theme and Jekyll.
---
## Build the Theme
Follow these instructions to build the theme.
### 1. Download the theme
First download or clone the theme from the [Github repo](https://github.com/tomjohnson1492/documentation-theme-jekyll). Most likely you won't be pulling in updates once you start customizing the theme, so downloading the theme (instead of cloning it) probably makes the most sense. In Github, click the **Clone or download** button, and then click **Download ZIP**.
### 2. Install Jekyll
If you've never installed or run a Jekyll site locally on your computer, follow these instructions to install Jekyll:
* [Install Jekyll on Mac][mydoc_install_jekyll_on_mac]
* [Install Jekyll on Windows][mydoc_install_jekyll_on_windows]
### 3. Install Bundler
In case you haven't installed Bundler, install it:
```
gem install bundler
```
You'll want [Bundler](http://bundler.io/) to make sure all the Ruby gems needed work well with your project. Bundler sorts out dependencies and installs missing gems or matches up gems with the right versions based on gem dependencies.
### 4. Option 1: Build the Theme (*without* the github-pages gem) {#option1}
Use this option if you're not planning to publish your Jekyll site using [Github Pages](https://pages.github.com/).
Bundler's Gemfile is how it specifies and manages project dependencies are managed. Although this project includes a Gemfile, this theme doesn't have any dependencies beyond core Jekyll. The Gemfile is used to specify gems needed for publishing on Github Pages. **If you're not planning to have Github Pages build your Jekyll project, delete these two files from the theme's root directory:**
* Gemfile
* Gemfile.lock
If you've never run Jekyll on your computer (you can check with `jekyll --version`), you may need to install the jekyll gem:
```
gem install jekyll
```
Now run jekyll serve (first change directories (`cd`) to where you downloaded the project):
```
jekyll serve
```
### 4. Option 2: Build the Theme (*with* the github-pages gem) {#option2}
If you *are* in fact publishing on Github Pages, leave the Gemfile and Gemfile.lock files in the theme.The Gemfile tells Jekyll to use the github-pages gem. **However, note that you cannot use the normal `jekyll serve` command with this gem due to dependency conflicts between the latest version of Jekyll and Github Pages** (which are noted [briefly here](https://help.github.com/articles/setting-up-your-github-pages-site-locally-with-jekyll/)).
You need Bundler to resolve these dependency conflicts. Use Bundler to install all the needed Ruby gems:
```
bundle update
```
Then *always* use this command to build Jekyll:
```
bundle exec jekyll serve
```
If you want to shorten this long command, you can put this code in a file such as jekyll.sh (on a Mac) and then simply type `. jekyll.sh` to build Jekyll.
## Running the site in Docker
You can also use Docker to directly build and run the site on your local machine. Just clone the repo and run the following from your working dir:
```
docker build --no-cache -t mydocs .
```
Once the build is complete, you can mount and run the whole site as follows:
```
docker run -v "$PWD:/src" -p 4000:4000 mydocs serve -H 0.0.0.0
```
This is perhaps the easiest way to see how your site would actually look.
## Configure the sidebar
There are several products in this theme. Each product uses a different sidebar. This is the essence of what makes this theme unique -- different sidebars for different product documentation. The idea is that when users are reading documentation for a specific product, the sidebar navigation should be specific to that product. (You can read more of my thoughts on why multiple sidebars are important in this [blog post](http://idratherbewriting.com/2016/03/23/release-of-documentation-theme-for-jekyll-50/).)
The top navigation remains the same, because it allows users to navigate across products. But the sidebar navigation adapts to the product.
Because each product uses a different sidebar, you'll need to set up your sidebars. There's a file inside \_includes/custom called "sidebarconfigs.html." This file controls which sidebar gets associated with which product. Open up this file to see its contents.
The sidebarconfigs.html file uses simple `if elsif` logic to set a variable that the sidebar.html file uses to read the sidebar data file. The code in sidebarconfigs.html looks like this:
{% raw %}
```liquid
{% if page.sidebar == "home_sidebar" %}
{% assign sidebar = site.data.sidebars.home_sidebar.entries %}
{% elsif page.sidebar == "product1_sidebar" %}
{% assign sidebar = site.data.sidebars.product1_sidebar.entries %}
{% elsif page.sidebar == "product2_sidebar" %}
{% assign sidebar = site.data.sidebars.product2_sidebar.entries %}
{% elsif page.sidebar == "mydoc_sidebar" %}
{% assign sidebar = site.data.sidebars.mydoc_sidebar.entries %}
{% else %}
{% assign sidebar = site.data.sidebars.home_sidebar.entries %}
{% endif %}
```
{% endraw %}
In each page's frontmatter, you must specify the sidebar you want that page to use. Here's an example of the page frontmatter showing the sidebar property:
---
title: Alerts
tags: [formatting]
keywords: notes, tips, cautions, warnings, admonitions
last_updated: July 3, 2016
summary: "You can insert notes, tips, warnings, and important alerts in your content. These notes are stored as shortcodes made available through the linksrefs.hmtl include."
sidebar: mydoc_sidebar
permalink: mydoc_alerts
---
The `sidebar: mydoc_sidebar` refers to the \_data/sidebars/mydoc_sidebar.yml file (meaning, the mydoc_sidebar.yml file inside the sidebars subfolder inside the \data folder).
If no sidebar assignment is found in the page frontmatter, the default sidebar (specified by the `else` statement) will be shown: `site.data.sidebars.home_sidebar.entries`.
Note that your sidebar can only have 2 levels. Given that each product has its own sidebar, this depth should be sufficient (it's really like 3 levels). Deeper nesting goes against usability recommendations.
{% include note.html content="Note that each level must have at least one topic before the next level starts. You can't have a second level that contains multiple third levels without having at least one standalone topic in the second level." %}
For more detail on the sidebar, see [Sidebar navigation][mydoc_sidebar_navigation].
## Sidebar syntax
The sidebar data file uses a specific YAML syntax that you must follow. Follow the sample pattern shown in the theme. For example:
```yaml
entries:
- title: sidebar
product: Jekyll Doc Theme
version: 6.0
folders:
- title: Overview
output: web, pdf
folderitems:
- title: Get started
url: /index.html
output: web, pdf
- title: Introduction
url: /mydoc_introduction.html
output: web, pdf
- title: Supported features
url: /mydoc_supported_features.html
output: web, pdf
- title: About the theme author
url: /mydoc_about.html
output: web, pdf
- title: Support
url: /mydoc_support.html
output: web, pdf
- title: Release Notes
output: web, pdf
folderitems:
- title: 6.0 Release notes
url: /mydoc_release_notes_60.html
output: web, pdf
- title: 5.0 Release notes
url: /mydoc_release_notes_50.html
output: web, pdf
```
Each `folder` or `subfolder` must contain a `title` and `output` property. Each `folderitem` or `subfolderitem` must contain a `title`, `url`, and `output` property.
The two outputs available are `web` and `pdf`. (Even if you aren't publishing PDF, you still need to specify `output: web`).
The YAML syntax depends on exact spacing, so make sure you follow the pattern shown in the sample sidebars. See my [YAML tutorial](mydoc_yaml_tutorial) for more details about how YAML works.
To accommodate the title page and table of contents in PDF outputs, each product sidebar must list these pages before any other:
```yaml
- title:
output: pdf
type: frontmatter
folderitems:
- title:
url: /titlepage
output: pdf
type: frontmatter
- title:
url: /tocpage
output: pdf
type: frontmatter
```
Leave the output as `output: pdf` for these frontmatter pages so that they don't appear in the web output.
For more detail on the sidebar, see [Sidebar navigation][mydoc_sidebar_navigation] and [YAML tutorial][mydoc_yaml_tutorial].
## Relative links and offline viewing
This theme uses relative links throughout so that you can view the site offline and not worry about which server or directory you're hosting it. It's common with tech docs to push content to an internal server for review prior to pushing the content to an external server for publication. Because of the need for seamless transferrence from one host to another, the site has to use relative links.
To view pages locally on your machine (without the Jekyll preview server), they need to have the `.html` extension. The `permalink` property in the page's frontmatter (without surrounding slashes) is what pushes the files into the root directory when the site builds.
## Page frontmatter
When you write pages, include these same frontmatter properties with each page:
```yaml
---
title: "Some title"
tags: [sample1, sample2]
keywords: keyword1, keyword2, keyword3
last_updated: Month day, year
summary: "optional summary here"
sidebar: sidebarname
permalink: filename.html
---
```
(You will customize the values for each of these properties, of course.)
For titles, surrounding the title in quotes is optional, but if you have a colon in the title, you must surround the title with quotation marks. If you have a quotation mark inside the title, escape it first with a backlash `\`.
Values for `keywords` get populated into the metadata of the page for SEO.
Values for `tags` must be defined in your \_data/tags.yml list. You also need a corresponding tag file inside the tags folder that follows the same pattern as the other tag files shown in the tags folder. (Jekyll won't auto-create these tag files.)
If you don't want the mini-TOC to show on a page (such as for the homepage or landing pages), add `toc: false` in the frontmatter.
The `permalink` value should be the same as your filename and include the ".html" file extension.
For more detail, see [Pages][mydoc_pages].
## Where to store your documentation topics
You can store your files for each product inside subfolders following the pattern shown in the theme. For example, product1, product2, etc, can be stored in their own subfolders inside the \_pages directory. Inside \_pages, you can store your topics inside sub-subfolders or sub-sub-folders to your heart's content. When Jekyll builds your site, it will pull the topics into the root directory and use the permalink for the URL.
Note that product1, product2, and mydoc are all just sample content to demonstrate how to add multiple products into the theme. You can freely delete that content.
For more information, see [Pages][mydoc_pages] and [Posts][mydoc_posts].
## Configure the top navigation
The top navigation bar's menu items are set through the \_data/topnav.yml file. Use the top navigation bar to provide links for navigating from one product to another, or to navigate to external resources.
For external URLs, use `external_url` in the item property, as shown in the example topnav.yml file. For internal links, use `url` the same was you do in the sidebar data files.
Note that the topnav has two sections: `topnav` and `topnav_dropdowns`. The topnav section contains single links, while the `topnav_dropdowns` section contains dropdown menus. The two sections are independent of each other.
## Generating PDF
If you want to generate PDF, you'll need a license for [Prince XML](http://www.princexml.com/). You will also need to [install Prince](http://www.princexml.com/doc/installing/). You can generate PDFs by product (but not for every product on the site combined together into one massive PDF). Prince will work even without a license, but it will imprint a small Prince image on the first page, and you're supposed to buy the license to use it.
If you're on Windows, install [Git Bash client](https://git-for-windows.github.io/) rather than using the default Windows command prompt.
Open up the css/printstyles.css file and customize the email address (`youremail@domain.com`) that is listed there. This email address appears in the bottom left footer of the PDF output. You'll also need to create a PDF configuration file following the examples shown in the pdfconfigs folder, and also customize some build scripts following the same pattern shown in the root: pdf-product1.sh
See the section on [Generating PDFs][mydoc_generating_pdfs] for more details about setting the theme up for this output.
## Blogs / News
For blog posts, create your markdown files in the \_posts folder following the sample formats. Post file names always begin with the date (YYYY-MM-DD-title).
The news/news.html file displays the posts, and the news_archive.html file shows a yearly history of posts. In documentation, you might use the news to highlight product features outside of your documentation, or to provide release notes and other updates.
See [Posts][mydoc_posts] for more information.
## Markdown
This theme uses [kramdown markdown](http://kramdown.gettalong.org/). kramdown is similar to Github-flavored Markdown, except that when you have text that intercepts list items, the spacing of the intercepting text must align with the spacing of the first character after the space of a numbered list item. Basically, with your list item numbering, use two spaces after the dot in the number, like this:
```
1. First item
2. Second item
3. Third item
```
When you want to insert paragraphs, notes, code snippets, or other matter in between the list items, use four spaces to indent. The four spaces will line up with the first letter of the list item (the First or Second or Third).
```
1. First item
```
alert("hello");
```
2. Second item
Some pig!
3. Third item
```
See the topics under "Formatting" in the sidebar for more information.
## Automated links
If you want to use an automated system for managing links, see [Automated Links][mydoc_hyperlinks.html#automatedlinks]. This approach automatically creates a list of Markdown references to simplify linking.
## Other instructions
The content here is just a getting started guide only. For other details in working with the theme, see the various sections in the sidebar.
{% include links.html %}