JRMGraphy

JRMGraphy is a personal photography portfolio built with Jekyll. It showcases various photography categories (e.g., Portraits, Nature, City, Creativity) and offers dynamic galleries, an infinite scroll feature, and a contact form. The site is optimized for both desktop and mobile viewing and is hosted on platforms like Netlify.

Features

• Responsive Design: Built with Bootstrap 5 to ensure a mobile-first, responsive layout.
• Dynamic Galleries: Utilizes JavaScript for random image selection, infinite scrolling, and modal-based image enlargements.
• Easy Category Management: Categories and image settings are defined in _data/categories.yml with individual category pages in the /gallery folder.
• Contact Form: Integrated contact form that submits data via a Google Apps Script endpoint.
• SEO & Performance: Uses best practices such as lazy loading of images and a minimalistic design for fast page loads.

Technologies Used

• Jekyll: Static site generator for building the site.
• Ruby Gems: Defined in Gemfile (e.g., jekyll, minima, jekyll-feed).
• Bootstrap 5: For responsive UI components.
• Font Awesome: For icons in the navigation and footer.
• Google Fonts: Using the "Poppins" font family.
• JavaScript: Custom scripts for galleries, modals, infinite scroll, and form submission.
• Netlify: Configuration via netlify.toml for continuous deployment.
• Google Apps Script: Used for handling contact form submissions.

Directory Structure

• Root Files:
  • 404.html, about.md, contact.md, index.md – Core pages.
  • .gitignore, Gemfile, Gemfile.lock, netlify.toml – Build and deployment files.
• /_config.yml: Site configuration (title, description, plugins, etc.).
• /_layouts: Layout templates (default.html, home.html, gallery.html, page.html, category.html).
• /_includes: Reusable HTML fragments (header, navigation, footer, modal).
• /_data: YAML files for categories (categories.yml) and site info (site_info.yml).
• /assets:
  • css/styles.css – Custom styling.
  • js/script.js – Custom JavaScript for dynamic functionality.
• /gallery: Markdown files for each category page.
• dirOutput.py: A utility script to scan directories and output file contents (useful for debugging and content management).

Setup and Installation

1. Clone the Repository:

   git clone https://your-repository-url.git

2. Install Dependencies:

   bundle install

3. Run Locally:

   bundle exec jekyll serve

   Open your browser and navigate to http://localhost:4000.

Managing Categories

• Adding a New Category:

  1. Update _data/categories.yml: Add a new entry with keys such as name, title, description, prefix, start, count, and an initial image.
  2. Create a Markdown Page: In the /gallery folder, create a new file (e.g., newcategory.md) using the category layout.
  3. Image Assets: Place your images in the corresponding folder (e.g., /assets/images/newcategory).

• Editing an Existing Category:

  • Update the corresponding details in _data/categories.yml.
  • Add or remove images in the respective folder.

License

[Specify your license here]