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Mastering Markdown for Documentation with Jekyll

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Introduction to Markdown and Jekyll
Creating Content with Markdown and Jekyll
Enhancing Your Site
Publishing Your Site

Managing Static Assets

A guide to effectively organizing and using images, CSS, and JavaScript in your Jekyll site to create a visually appealing and interactive experience.

By Kevin McAleer,    3 Minutes

Managing Static Assets cover image

Introduction

Static assets are crucial components of any website, contributing to its aesthetics, functionality, and overall user experience. In Jekyll, managing these assets efficiently is key to building a professional and polished site.

Organizing Your Assets

Jekyll supports a flexible directory structure, allowing you to organize your assets in a way that makes sense for your project. A common approach is to create dedicated directories for each type of asset within the root of your Jekyll project:

  • images/ for all your image files.
  • css/ for your stylesheets.
  • js/ for your JavaScript files.

Referencing Static Assets

To reference static assets in your Jekyll site, use the site.baseurl variable to ensure your paths are correct, especially when your site is hosted in a subpath of a domain.

To use Varables in Jekyll, you can use the following syntax: ``.

For Example:


![An example image]({{ site.baseurl }}/images/example.jpg)

Images

Images can be included in your content using the following syntax: [Alt Text](URL for the image).

For example:

![An example image](/images/example.jpg)

CSS

Include a link to your CSS file in the <head> section of your layout template:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/styles.css">

JavaScript

Include your JavaScript files before the closing </body> tag in your layout template for better page load performance:


<script src="{{ site.baseurl }}/js/scripts.js"></script>

Using SASS/SCSS with Jekyll

Jekyll has built-in support for Sass, a CSS preprocessor that allows you to use variables, nested rules, mixins, and more in your stylesheets.

  1. Store your .scss or .sass files in a _sass directory.
  2. Create a main stylesheet in your css directory that uses the @import directive to include your Sass files. Ensure this file has a front matter section, even if it’s empty, to tell Jekyll to process it.

---
---

@import "main";

Practice Exercise

  1. Organize your Jekyll project by creating images, css, and js directories.
  2. Add a sample image, a CSS file with basic styles, and a simple JavaScript file that adds interactive functionality to your site.
  3. Update your default layout to include these assets and view the changes locally.

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