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Just the Class

Just the Class is a GitHub Pages template developed for the purpose of quickly deploying course websites. In addition to serving plain web pages and files, it provides a boilerplate for:

Just the Class is a set of customizations on top of the popular Just the Docs theme, which provides a robust and thoroughly-tested foundation that makes it easy to extend for your own special use cases. These foundational features include:

Getting Started

Getting started with Just the Class is simple.

  1. Create a new repository based on Just the Class.
    • for CSW8, use the previous course repo to minimize the setup time:
    • W22 (github / web) → S22 (github / web)
  2. Update _config.yml and index.md with your course information.
  3. Configure a publishing source for GitHub Pages. Your course website is now live!
  4. Edit and create .md Markdown files to add your content.
    • _config.yml- update first - its contents are not auto-refreshed like the .md pages do. To see the changes to its contents, stop/restart Jekyll
    • about.md - make sure to update the Syllabus and course policies
    • announcements.md - skip, if not using the website Announcements
    • calendar.md - the information from this file is displayed at the top of the page that lists weekly topics and due dates;
      • if not using reflections, make sure to comment-out that part of the instructions.
      • The Calendar is populated using the files in the _modules folder. These are added semi-automatically, using a script generate_due_dates.py that hard-codes start and end dates, etc.
    • faq.md - make sure to update the QnA based on your course information. After you update the Syllabus and the Calendar, make sure you address the typical first-week questions and clarify the #weekly-pattern-and-planning-your-work section
    • index.md - the front page of the course; some of the info there, like the course title, come from the _config.yml file
    • jekyll.sh - no need to change: run it as a shortcut to running the bundle command
    • quiz.md - make sure to update the instructions based on your course quiz structure and policies
    • schedule.md - the information for it is pulled from the _schedules/weekly.md --> make sure to update the latter - usually done via a script
    • staff.md - the information for it is pulled from the _staffers and images are in the assets/images --> make sure to update them (see the _example.md to help you get started with a template)
    • success.md - make sure to change the Roadmap to align with your course calendar
  • For the ref/ folder, I recommend initially comitting the goals.md, since it's referenced in the Syllabus and keyboard.md; the rest of them can be added later, when they become relevant.
  • Initial commit should include the following files (if using announcements): README.md _announcements _config.yml _includes/ _layouts/ _modules/ _sass/ about.md announcements.md assets/ calendar.md faq.md index.md jekyll.sh ref/goals.md ref/keyboard.md schedule.md staff.md success.md _staffers _schedules

Just the Class has been used by instructors at Stanford University (CS 161), UC Berkeley (Data 100), UC Santa Barbara (DS1), Northeastern University (CS4530/5500), and Carnegie Mellon University (17-450/17-950). For a few open-source examples, see the following course websites and their source code.

Share your course website and find more examples in the show and tell discussion!

Continue reading to learn how to setup a development environment on your local computer. This allows you to make incremental changes without directly modifying the live website.

Local development environment

Just the Class is built for Jekyll, a static site generator. View the quick start guide for more information. Just the Docs requires no special Jekyll plugins and can run on GitHub Pages' standard Jekyll compiler.

  1. Follow the GitHub documentation for Setting up your GitHub Pages site locally with Jekyll.
  2. Start your local Jekyll server.
$ bundle exec jekyll serve
  1. Point your web browser to http://localhost:4000
  2. Reload your web browser after making a change to preview its effect.

For more information, refer to Just the Docs.