Configure the Guide

Work your way through these steps to update the _config.yml file — this configures the DCgov style template for your specific guide:

Set the guide name

The name: property appears as the guide’s overall title. For example:

name: DCgov Guides Template

Set the exclude: entries

Make sure the exclude: list contains at least the following files, and add any other files you might have added that shouldn’t appear in the generated _site directory:

exclude: [".rvmrc", ".rbenv-version", "README.md", "changelog.md"]

Register new pages

The navigation: list is used to generate the table of contents. For example, the navigation: section of this guide contains:

navigation:
- text: Introduction
  internal: true
  url: ./
- text: Add a new page
  internal: true
  url: add-a-new-page
- text: Configure the Guide
  internal: true
  url: configure-the-guide
- text: GitHub Setup
  internal: true
  url: github
- text: Create a Glossary
  glossary: true
- text: Edit this Repo
  internal: false
  url: https://github.com/DCgov/guides-template

For internal pages, the url should match the the name of the page’s markdown file. If you would like to include a link to the glossary in the sidebar, add navigation item with a glossary attribute set to true.

Update the repository list

You’ll need to update the repos: list to reflect the GitHub repository that will contain your guide. The first of these repositories should be the repository for the guide itself; it will be used to generate the Edit this page and file an issue links in the footer.

The url: should be https://github.com/DCgov/MY-NEW-GUIDE, where MY-NEW-GUIDE is the name you gave your clone of the DCgov/guides-template repository. For the description: property, it’s OK to enter something generic like “main repository.” However, if you aren’t certain about either value, it’s also OK to enter placeholder text for these properties and change them later.

The repos: entry of this template contains:


- name: guides-template
  description: 
  url: https://github.com/DCgov/guides-template

Optional: update google_analytics_ua:

The google_analytics_ua: property can be optionally set to the Google Analytics account identifier, if there is one.

Close

Glossary of Terms

  • A glossary term

    To add glossary terms, edit the glossary.yaml file in the _data folder.

  • Another term

    Glossary terms need a term, slug, and definition attribute. The term attribute will appear above the definition. The slug is a unique identifier for the term. It should be lowercase, with no special characters or punctuation, and any spaces replaced with a dash.

  • Yet another term

    Want to link to a specific glossary term in your text, like this one here? You will need to edit your markdown like so:

    [this one here](#glossary){:define="yet-another-term"}
    

    Just place the text you want linked in the brackets and the correct slug within the quotes.