We’re thrilled to have you on board at our carbon-neutral site! This quickstart guide will help you get started. We recommend giving it a quick read before you dive in.

Building your site

When designing and building your site for the first time, we recommend:

  • First, choose and customise your theme.
  • Second, begin writing your content.

By building your site in this order you can easily ‘reset’ your theme should you make a mistake or want to try out a different theme. For more information about this approach, watch our walkthough video.

1. Jekyll

Our platform relies on the power of an open-source static website builder known as Jekyll. By using Jekyll, we not only support the open-source community but also provide you access to a vast collection of website themes available online.

For a curated selection of Jekyll themes, check out Jamstack themes. We’ve handpicked some of our favorites and included them in the settings. While we can guarantee a smooth experience with these favorites, we cannot ensure the same for themes you may find elsewhere. However, we expect that about 80% of themes should work seamlessly.

You can locate your theme files under the “Template files” section in the “Your files” sidebar. Simply click the header to expand the files. To make edits, click on a file, make changes in the editor, and then click “Save changes” in the top-right corner.

Creating new pages might require following instructions specific to your chosen theme, often found in the “Template files” - README.md. If you need to overwrite the content of a file in your template files, you can either recreate it in your own files (your new file takes priority) or edit the template file directly.

2. Github

Our site builder relies on Github to host your website code, perform the Jekyll conversion, and host your site. This setup ensures that your website benefits from a network of servers across the globe, all powered by 100% renewable electricity. If you’re interested in Github’s commitment to environmental sustainability, you can read about it here. They are on track to achieve carbon negativity by 2030, a fantastic milestone! 👍

3. Markdown

All our Jekyll pages are crafted using a file format known as “Markdown.” In fact, this guide itself is written in Markdown. Markdown files always have a .md extension.

On the left-hand side, you’ll see the ‘Markdown’ language transformed into stylized text on the right-hand side. Markdown is incredibly versatile, and you can do virtually anything with it. To explore more about Markdown’s capabilities, you can refer to this Markdown guide.

4. Images

While you can upload text-based content directly to the site editor, adding images requires a different approach. You’ll need to upload images elsewhere and then link to them, just as we’ve done here:

He's trying really hard.

5. Re-generating Your Site

After making and saving several changes, you might want to update your website to see your changes go live. Simply click “Regenerate site” in the top-right corner of the page.

Note: The process of regenerating your site can take between 30 to 90 seconds. You may need to wait a bit and/or refresh your page to see the changes. If you’re curious about the progress, click “View build status,” which will take you to Github and show you your current progress.

Should you make changes that break your site’s re-building, Github will send you an email containing details of the error. You can also access this information by clicking on “View build status” and reviewing the most recent failed build. Don’t worry breaking your site won’t effect currently live versions.

Basic Editing Features

Editing Files

To edit a file, simply click on a file listed in the “Your files” sidebar on the left. Your selected file will open on the right-hand side in the editor. Make your desired changes and then click “Save changes” on the top-right sidebar.

Creating Files/Folders

To create a new file or folder, click the “New file / folder” button. When the prompt appears, type in the filepath for your new file. Be sure to include the file extension if you’re creating a new page; typically, it should be “.md.”

⚠️ Important: Avoid using spaces in your folder or filenames.

For example:

  • /helloworld.md creates a new file named helloworld.md.
  • /newfolder/ creates a new folder called newfolder.
  • /newfolder/subfolder/file.md creates a folder called subfolder within newfolder, containing a file named file.md.

Deleting a File

To delete a file, open it, and then click “Delete file.”

💡 Note that it’s currently not possible to delete a folder.

Happy site building! 🌍🌱