Wordpress, Blogger, Wix, I’ve been using these sites for a while now. However, they all seem to be missing something. Some feature I want but they don’t have.

I can’t customize them as much as I like. Math rendering is hard. Custom features are hard to setup.

Then I tried creating my blog with React hosted on Github Pages, building my site from scratch. I then realized there are a bunch of things I need to implement, and it’s kind of a pain to do.

Then I realized Jekyll has the best of both worlds. I can custoize enough to fill my needs, without having to implement messy stuff.

So here are the features I added onto my blog, ordered chronologically:

Table of Contents

Tags

Date: 22 Nov 2021

Tags wasn’t one of my ideas. I happen to see it in another Jekyll blog, and I like it. I added it to my blog. The tutorial is here and here.

MathJax

Date: 22 Nov 2021

To be honest, I don’t even know I’m doing this correctly yet. I’m just trying to get the math rendering to work.

It works, so I’m not touching the code. Someone help me.

Here’s the code I copied into my blog (it works):

<script type="text/javascript" async
    src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/mathjax/2.7.7/latest.js?config=TeX-MML-AM_CHTML">
</script>

<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/katex@0.12.0/dist/katex.min.css" integrity="sha384-AfEj0r4/OFrOo5t7NnNe46zW/tFgW6x/bCJG8FqQCEo3+Aro6EYUG4+cU+KJWu/X" crossorigin="anonymous">
<script defer src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/katex@0.12.0/dist/katex.min.js" integrity="sha384-g7c+Jr9ZivxKLnZTDUhnkOnsh30B4H0rpLUpJ4jAIKs4fnJI+sEnkvrMWph2EDg4" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
<script defer src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/katex@0.12.0/dist/contrib/auto-render.min.js" integrity="sha384-mll67QQFJfxn0IYznZYonOWZ644AWYC+Pt2cHqMaRhXVrursRwvLnLaebdGIlYNa" crossorigin="anonymous"
    onload="renderMathInElement(document.body);"></script>

RSS Feed

Date: 22 Nov 2021

There is a “Subscribe to RSS” button at the home page of the minima theme (I like this theme most, it’s simple). I wanted to remove it, but I thought, why not just make it work? Although, frankly, no one uses it.

I googled and found this nice copy-pasta from roachhd. I then added it to my blog. It was simple.

Netlify CMS

Date: 22 Nov 2021

Having a CMS simplifies stuff. I will be able to edit it anywhere. There are many CMS, but I like Netlify CMS. It’s open-sourced, nice, simple, and easy to use. Here’s the tutorial I used.

Favicon

Date: 22 Nov 2021

realfavicongenerator.net is a great tool to generate favicons. I used it to generate a favicon for my blog. My favicon has font Portculliard Bold.

Google Analytics

Date: 22 Nov 2021

This feature is already in the theme. I just had to add my tracking ID.

Back To Top Button

Date: 22 Nov 2021

I was scrolling through my CSES blog, and I realized how annoying it was to scroll back to the top. Hence, I added the “back to top” button.

(28 Dec 2021) Update:

To improve performance, I extracted the css and used a simpler function for the button. Hence, it does not need to use a CDN. The script is here.

Live2D Widget

Date: 24 Dec 2021

Isn’t this just the best. I took the Live2D Widget, changed it to English, used only one model, customized it to my desires needs, and added it to my blog.