Website Basics

How the website works

The OSSSG website is built using Quarto, and the source files for the website are managed on GitHub. The GitHub repository for the website is located at https://github.com/Open-Science-Student-Support-Group/osssg-website.

If you navigate to the GitHub repository you can view the source files for the website. The source files for the website fall into two broad categories:

• Input files
• Output files

Input files provide the scaffolding for the website, containing things such as settings for pages, written content, image files, and so forth. Output files contain the content that we publish to the web. This content is rendered by Quarto from the website’s input input files, then written to the _site directory. The _site directory contains the output files for the website (indeed, it is the website!); everything else can be thought of as an input file.

We publish the content in the _site directory to the web using Netlify, which is integrated with the website’s GitHub repository. Whenever a new commit is made on the main branch of the GitHub repository, Netlify will publish the content in the _site directory to the web.

Site file structure

The main content for the site is stored in the following files and directories:

• _quarto.yml controls site-wide parameters and is where navbar and footer contents are specified
• _variables.yml controls site-wide variables, such as the email used in our contact page
• index.qmd is the site’s home page
• about, contact, documents, events, and news contain those respective pages for the site
  • documents, events, and news are listing pages
    • The index.qmd file in each directory controls parameters for the post listings
  • contact has a listing section for displaying member profiles
    • The profiles are created in the members.yml file in the contact directory
    • Profile pictures are stored in the avatars directory
• 404.qmd is the 404 page for the site
• styles.css and theme.scss in the assets directory are used for additional CSS and SASS styling for the site’s appearance, such as fonts and colours

Other files:

• _templates contains templates you can use for creating new posts for the sites various listing pages. - Please see the README.md file inside _templates or the New Post Workflow document for more information
• _common includes files that are common to several pages across the site
  • Please see the README.md file inside _common for more information
• _site contains the files for the rendered site
  • Do not modify anything in this directory directly, it’s pointless
    • Whenever you render the site it will be overwritten.

Creating and editing content

See the New Post Workflow document.

Learning more about Quarto

Please see the getting started page for installation information, and the Quarto guide and reference for information on how the site was built and how you can modify it.