GitHub, Jekyll, Markdown + VSCode = Writing Heaven

Overview

There’s lots of ways to have your own freely hosted blog. I decided I wanted to do my own thing, so instead of a platform like Blogger or WordPress, I’m using GitHub Pages. I like the freedom this gives me to do what I like, and working with Markdown and Jekyll has been a good learning experience. It’s also helped confirm VSCode is the editor for me, with a nice set of extensions to make writing simple and easy.

I couldn’t find a single collection of articles like this to help me get started, so figured I’d write one to help others. I’ll try and keep it simple, with step-by-step guides, and plenty of screenshots.

I’ll keep this page updated, and link the series of articles below as I get them written. Here’s what I’m planning:

1. Github - How to create an account, and fork a Jekyll theme - available here.

2. VSCode + Git - Install, configure and use - available here.

3. VSCode - Install, configure and use helpful plugins - available here.

4. Jekyll - Looking at the configuration files and customising your theme.

5. Markdown - Write example posts to see how Markdown and Jekyll works with your theme.

6. Extras - Custom domains, Github plugins, options instead of remote themes.