TARDIS Project

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====== 3. Making a custom homepage ======

As part of your Tardis account, you get your own subdomain at ''<username>.tardis.ac'' - you can put anything (that doesn't break our rules) here, and expose whatever applications you want.

If you want a static homepage (one that doesn't change for each visitor).

===== Simple webpages =====


All you have to do is make some file in ''www/'', and it'll start being served.

To test this, let's write some basic HTML. From your home directory:

<code>
$ cd www/
www/ $ nano index.html
</code>

This will open a simple text editor. You can use the arrow keys to move around. Now type or paste the following:

<code>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>My homepage</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <h1>It Works!</h1>
    </body>
</html>
</code>

Hit Ctrl+X then Y to save and exit. Now, if you go to ''<username>.tardis.ac'', you should see ''It Works!''. If not, you might have to wait a bit for things to propagate.

From here, you can start making your own site and putting actual content on it. If you don't know HTML/CSS, here are some good beginner resources:

  * [[https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/HTML/Introduction_to_HTML|Mozilla's introduction to HTML]]
  * [[https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/CSS|Mozilla's introduction to CSS]]
  * [[https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_intro.asp|W3School's introduction to HTML]]
  * [[https://jgthms.com/web-design-in-4-minutes/|Web design in 4 minutes (assumes HTML+CSS knowledge)]]
  * [[https://sadgrl.online/webmastery/|sadgrl's collection of misc resources]] 


However, editing all the HTML files by hand, on Tardis over SSH, can get a bit tedious. A static site generator (see below) reduces the amount of HTML you need to write, or go to the [[howto:files|next tutorial]] to learn about copying files to-and-from Tardis - this way you can create and edit the HTML files on your local machine, and copy them to Tardis when done.

===== Using a static site generator =====

Programming a site by hand is great for learning, but you might find it becomes unmanageable after a bit.
To help, you can use a tool called a Static Site Generator (SSG), such as:

  * [[https://jekyllrb.com/|Jekyll]] is pretty common for blogs, and lets you write your main content in Markdown
  * [[https://gohugo.io/|Hugo]] is a newer alternative similar to Jekyll
  * [[https://astro.build/|Astro]] is a less blog-focused alternative that will be familiar to React users.

You can install and use these from the sandbox VM, and put the output in ''www/''.

Alternatively, you can have your SSG run automatically, and deploy to our [[https://git.tardisproject.uk|Gitlab]] instance
[[https://gitlab.com/pages|Here]] are sample repositories for all of the mentioned approaches and more. 
You should be familiar with Git before trying this approach.