Getting Started with Jekyll in Windows OS

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Published: April 03, 2019

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Download and Install a Ruby+Devkit version from RubyInstaller Downloads. Use default options for installation.
Run the ridk install after ruby installation wizard. Install all 3 components because this is needed for installing gems with native extensions base from Ruby Installer Documentation.
To check which ruby and gem version installed in your computer, open command prompt and type ruby -v and gem -v.
- If ruby is not recognized in your computer, go to Ruby bin folder and copy the directory path. By default it’s directory path should be like this C:\Ruby26-x64\bin.
- Next step, go to Control Panel\System and Security\System and open Advanced System Settings. Click on Environment Variables and double-click Path under System Variables to edit it.
- Then add the ruby path directory by clicking New and pasting the copied ruby bin directory. Then click OK and apply changes to run ruby command.
Then open command prompt to install Jekyll and Bundler via: gem installer jekyll bundler. The following text will be displayed during installation.

C:\Users\IAmCarl>gem install jekyll bundler
Fetching em-websocket-0.5.1.gem
Fetching http_parser.rb-0.6.0.gem
Fetching eventmachine-1.2.7-x64-mingw32.gem
Fetching sassc-2.2.1-x64-mingw32.gem
Fetching jekyll-watch-2.2.1.gem
Fetching jekyll-sass-converter-2.1.0.gem
Fetching listen-3.2.1.gem
Fetching kramdown-2.1.0.gem
Fetching kramdown-parser-gfm-1.1.0.gem
Fetching liquid-4.0.3.gem
Fetching mercenary-0.3.6.gem
Fetching forwardable-extended-2.6.0.gem
Fetching pathutil-0.16.2.gem
Fetching rouge-3.17.0.gem
Fetching safe_yaml-1.0.5.gem
Fetching unicode-display_width-1.7.0.gem
Fetching jekyll-4.0.0.gem
Fetching terminal-table-1.8.0.gem
Successfully installed colorator-1.1.0
Temporarily enhancing PATH for MSYS/MINGW...
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
Successfully installed http_parser.rb-0.6.0
Successfully installed eventmachine-1.2.7-x64-mingw32
Successfully installed em-websocket-0.5.1
Successfully installed sassc-2.2.1-x64-mingw32
Successfully installed jekyll-sass-converter-2.1.0
Successfully installed listen-3.2.1
Successfully installed jekyll-watch-2.2.1
Successfully installed kramdown-2.1.0
Successfully installed kramdown-parser-gfm-1.1.0
Successfully installed liquid-4.0.3
Successfully installed mercenary-0.3.6
Successfully installed forwardable-extended-2.6.0
Successfully installed pathutil-0.16.2
Successfully installed rouge-3.17.0
Successfully installed safe_yaml-1.0.5
Successfully installed unicode-display_width-1.7.0
Successfully installed terminal-table-1.8.0
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jekyll 4.0 comes with some major changes, notably:

  * Our `link` tag now comes with the `relative_url` filter incorporated into it.
    You should no longer prepend  site.baseurl to foo.md
    For further details: https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll/pull/6727

  * Our `post_url` tag now comes with the `relative_url` filter incorporated into it.
    You shouldn't prepend  site.baseurl to post_url 2019-03-27-hello
    For further details: https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll/pull/7589

  * Support for deprecated configuration options has been removed. We will no longer
    output a warning and gracefully assign their values to the newer counterparts
    internally.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Successfully installed jekyll-4.0.0
Parsing documentation for colorator-1.1.0
Installing ri documentation for colorator-1.1.0
Parsing documentation for http_parser.rb-0.6.0
unknown encoding name "chunked\r\n\r\n25" for ext/ruby_http_parser/vendor/http-parser-java/tools/parse_tests.rb, skipping
Installing ri documentation for http_parser.rb-0.6.0
Parsing documentation for eventmachine-1.2.7-x64-mingw32
Installing ri documentation for eventmachine-1.2.7-x64-mingw32
Parsing documentation for em-websocket-0.5.1
Installing ri documentation for em-websocket-0.5.1
Parsing documentation for sassc-2.2.1-x64-mingw32
Installing ri documentation for sassc-2.2.1-x64-mingw32
Parsing documentation for jekyll-sass-converter-2.1.0
Installing ri documentation for jekyll-sass-converter-2.1.0
Parsing documentation for listen-3.2.1
Installing ri documentation for listen-3.2.1
Parsing documentation for jekyll-watch-2.2.1
Installing ri documentation for jekyll-watch-2.2.1
Parsing documentation for kramdown-2.1.0
Installing ri documentation for kramdown-2.1.0
Parsing documentation for kramdown-parser-gfm-1.1.0
Installing ri documentation for kramdown-parser-gfm-1.1.0
Parsing documentation for liquid-4.0.3
Installing ri documentation for liquid-4.0.3
Parsing documentation for mercenary-0.3.6
Installing ri documentation for mercenary-0.3.6
Parsing documentation for forwardable-extended-2.6.0
Installing ri documentation for forwardable-extended-2.6.0
Parsing documentation for pathutil-0.16.2
Installing ri documentation for pathutil-0.16.2
Parsing documentation for rouge-3.17.0
Installing ri documentation for rouge-3.17.0
Parsing documentation for safe_yaml-1.0.5
Installing ri documentation for safe_yaml-1.0.5
Parsing documentation for unicode-display_width-1.7.0
Installing ri documentation for unicode-display_width-1.7.0
Parsing documentation for terminal-table-1.8.0
Installing ri documentation for terminal-table-1.8.0
Parsing documentation for jekyll-4.0.0
Installing ri documentation for jekyll-4.0.0
Done installing documentation for colorator, http_parser.rb, eventmachine, em-websocket, sassc, jekyll-sass-converter, listen, jekyll-watch, kramdown, kramdown-parser-gfm, liquid, mercenary, forwardable-extended, pathutil, rouge, safe_yaml, unicode-display_width, terminal-table, jekyll after 108 seconds
Fetching bundler-2.1.4.gem
Successfully installed bundler-2.1.4
Parsing documentation for bundler-2.1.4
Installing ri documentation for bundler-2.1.4
Done installing documentation for bundler after 45 seconds
20 gems installed

C:\Users\IAmCarl>jekyll -v
jekyll 4.0.0

C:\Users\IAmCarl>

Check if Jekyll installed properly: jekyll -v

That’s it, you’re ready to use Jekyll!

Create a New Site

It’s time to create a site!

Create a new directory for your site, you can name it whatever you’d like.
Then add your first file, for example create index.html.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
	<meta charset="UTF-8">
	<title>Document</title>
</head>
<body>
	<h1>Hello World From Jekyll!</h1>
</body>
</html>

Then build the site to output static site to a directory called _site.

D:\Jekyll_Sites\firstsite>jekyll build

Configuration file: none
            Source: D:/Jekyll_Sites/firstsite
       Destination: D:/Jekyll_Sites/firstsite/_site
 Incremental build: disabled. Enable with --incremental
      Generating...
                    done in 0.094 seconds.
 Auto-regeneration: disabled. Use --watch to enable.

Then run local web server, be default jekyll web server run in port 4000, in order to browse the site go to http://localhost:4000/.

D:\Jekyll_Sites\firstsite>jekyll serve
Configuration file: none
            Source: D:/Jekyll_Sites/firstsite
       Destination: D:/Jekyll_Sites/firstsite/_site
 Incremental build: disabled. Enable with --incremental
      Generating...
                    done in 0.13 seconds.
  Please add the following to your Gemfile to avoid polling for changes:
    gem 'wdm', '>= 0.1.0' if Gem.win_platform?
 Auto-regeneration: enabled for 'D:/Jekyll_Sites/firstsite'
    Server address: http://127.0.0.1:4000
  Server running... press ctrl-c to stop.

Note: To run Jekyll in different port use jekyll serve --port 4001 --host my_hostname_or_ip or put port:4001 in your _config.yml.

That’s it, you’re site is running via Jekyll!

References:

https://jekyllrb.com/docs/installation/windows/
https://jekyllrb.com/docs/step-by-step/01-setup/
https://jekyllrb.com/docs/configuration/options/#serve-command-options
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/25650749/is-it-possible-to-serve-multiple-jekyll-sites-locally

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