Thread by @thomas_mock, Republished my #rstats Distill/RMarkdown based blog at http://themockup.blog after the recent Netlify [...]

Tom Mock

thomas_mock

Republished my #rstats Distill/RMarkdown based blog at http://themockup.blog after the recent Netlify .com -> .app mess

Also prompted me to:
- Think about my overall blog setup
- Add custom CSS for: fonts, colors, code
- Confirm preview images for each post

Thread below!

The Mockup Blog: Blog Posts

http://themockup.blog

If you love the idea of RMarkdown based blogs/sites, but aren't interested in Hugo/Jekyll versioning or major customization I'd highly recommend checking out Distill.

Distill is very similar in basic appearance to Medium . com or FiveThirtyEight. https://rstudio.github.io/distill/

Distill for R Markdown

Scientific and technical writing, native to the web

https://rstudio.github.io/distill/

The overall "meta-structure" of assembling sites, posts, etc personally clicked with me a lot more than most blogdown themes, and it's straightforward to add new "tabs" of content to the main site.

My YAML which is much "lighter" than my old blogdown site.

You're "constrained" to an opinionated layout which is something I REALLY wanted!

There IS easy customization of:
- fonts
- colors
- tabs/subdomains

My changes:
- Background color added to in-line code
- Nav header colors
- Body and header fonts
- Additional content tabs

The overall blog post workflow is flexible:

- One folder per one .rmd post
- Support for "drafts"
- Can easily import posts from alternatively published HTML https://rstudio.github.io/distill/blog_workflow.html

Distill for R Markdown: Blog Post Workflow

Recommendations on managing blog post drafts and a review of tools available to incorporate posts contributed by outside authors.

https://rstudio.github.io/distill/blog_workflow.html

Distill has all sorts of niceties for:
- Citations
- Equations
- Auto Table of Contents
- Tables/Plot layout
- Footnotes
- Asides (gutter text/plots next to body)
- Code blocks
- Appendices https://rstudio.github.io/distill/basics.html

Distill for R Markdown: Distill Basics

Scientific and technical writing, native to the web

https://rstudio.github.io/distill/basics.html

All this to say, Distill is:

"Scientific and technical writing, native to the web"

It's more akin to an opinionated publication platform (Medium w/out the issues) than an easily modifiable site (blogdown). https://rstudio.github.io/distill/

Distill for R Markdown

Scientific and technical writing, native to the web

https://rstudio.github.io/distill/

Distill will never replace amazingly beautiful and custom things like:

https://education.rstudio.com

https://www.tidymodels.org/

https://datavizm20.classes.andrewheiss.com/

BUT I think there's lots of potential here for personal lightweight and self-contained blogs!

The end!

Data Visualization

Communicate science and statistics with beautiful graphics made with R and ggplot2

https://education.rstudio.com

You can follow @thomas_mock.

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