Front Matter
Front matter is used for each post’s metadata. Here you will be listing things such as the post’s Author, date, title, etc. How do we know what is normal text and what is front-matter within a text file? Front matter is declared inside a set of 3 dashes. This set of 3 dashes should always be on the top of each post file, and your markdown content will be below.
If we view a post in our text editor, we should find front-matter that looks like the image below.
Anything inside this set of 3 dashes will be rendered by Jekyll as front-matter.
Now let’s break down what each variable in our front matter see what it does.
The layout variable tells Jekyll what template we want this post to use. All posts will always use the ‘post’ template. So this variable will most likely never need to change.
The title variable tells Jekyll what the title of this post will be. This should be a description title, but not too long.
The date variable tells Jekyll the date that this post was either originally written or updated. This takes the form of YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS (YEAR-MONTH-DAY HOUR:MINUTE:SECOND).
NOTE: You don’t have to include the HH:MM:SS, this is just to be more accurate.
The readtime variable tells Jekyll what the readtime of this post will be. This will tell the reader how approximately how long in minutes it will take for the reader to read and follow the steps.
The category variable tells Jekyll what category this post belongs to. In Assist, there are currently only 3 categories (as of 3/16/2016) which are: (1) How-to, (2) Strategies, and (3) Troubleshooting.
NOTE: Each post can only belong to ONE category. Therefore, you should only list one category for your category variable.
The tags variable tells Jekyll what tags this post belongs to. Because we usually have more than one tag that a post belongs to, we list the individual tags with a dash followed by a space and the name of the actual tag.
NOTE: Make sure when using tags you are careful with tag names. Let’s not get too crazy and create a bunch of tags because that will make filtering posts a little troublesome.
Instead, use one of the tags on the following list:
(add list of tags here)
The author variable tells Jekyll the other of the current post.
NOTE: If you ever update a post, make sure to also update the author variable to your name (if the post was originally written by someone else of course).
The materials variable tells Jekyll what materials the end-user will need prior to following the article. For example, if your article talks about using the internet, then the materials required would be a computer, internet connection, etc.
The blurb variable gives Jekyll the small blurb of the current post. This should be short but also informative description of the post. No more than 2 sentences if possible.
The published variable tells Jekyll whether you want to make your post published or not. A published post will be live and can be seen by the world. A post that is NOT published (a draft) will not be able to be viewed.
NOTE: If you ever set published to false, make sure you make a note of it. If you don’t, you will have to go through all posts to find which post you set the published variable to false.