simplify documentation

README.md

@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ This template is built on top of [Jekyll](http://jekyllrb.com/) and can be used
 - [Last important thing: YAML front matter ("parameters" for a page)](#last-important-thing-yaml-front-matter)
 - [Basic features](#features)
 - [Advanced features](#more-advanced-features)
-- [Featured users](#featured-users)
+- [Featured users (success stories!)](#featured-users)
 - [Very advanced: local development](#advanced-local-development)
 - [Credits](#credits)
 - [Contributions](#contributions)
@@ -48,15 +48,15 @@ Scroll down to see the steps involved, but here is a 40-second video just as a r
 
 ### 2. Rename the repository to `<yourusername>.github.io`
 
-This will create a GitHub User page ready with the **Beautiful Jekyll** template that will be available at `http://<yourusername>.github.io` within a couple minutes.  To do this, click on "Settings" on the right (the tools icon) and there you'll have an option to rename.
+This will create a GitHub User page ready with the **Beautiful Jekyll** template that will be available at `http://<yourusername>.github.io` within a couple minutes.  To do this, click on *Settings* at the top (the cog icon) and there you'll have an option to rename.
 
 ### 3. Customize your website settings
 
-Edit the `_config.yml` file to change all the settings to reflect your site. To edit the file, click on it and then click on the pencil icon (watch the video tutorial above if you're confused).  The settings in the file are fairly self-explanatory and I added comments inside the file to help you further. Any line that begins with a pound sign (`#`) is a comment, and the rest of the lines are settings.
+Edit the `_config.yml` file to change all the settings to reflect your site. To edit the file, click on it and then click on the pencil icon (watch the video tutorial above if you're confused).  The settings in the file are fairly self-explanatory and I added comments inside the file to help you further. Any line that begins with a pound sign (`#`) is a comment, and the rest of the lines are actual settings.
 
-Another way to edit the config file (or any other file) is to use [prose.io](http://prose.io/), which is just a simple interface to allow you to more intuitively edit files or new new files to your project.
+Another way to edit the config file (or any other file) is to use [prose.io](http://prose.io/), which is just a simple interface to allow you to more intuitively edit files or add new files to your project.
 
-After you save your changes to the config file (by clicking on "Commit changes" as the video tutorial shows), your website should be ready in a minute or two at `<yourusername>.github.io`. Every time you make a change to any file, your website will get rebuilt and should be updated in about a minute or so.
+After you save your changes to the config file (by clicking on *Commit changes* as the video tutorial shows), your website should be ready in a minute or two at `http://<yourusername>.github.io`. Every time you make a change to any file, your website will get rebuilt and should be updated in about a minute or so.
 
 You can now visit your shiny new website, which will be seeded with several sample blog posts and a couple other pages. Your website is at `http://<yourusername>.github.io` (replace `<yourusername>` with your user name). Do not add `www` to the URL - it will not work!
 
@@ -64,15 +64,15 @@ You can now visit your shiny new website, which will be seeded with several samp
 
 ### Add your own content
 
-To add pages to your site, you can either write a markdown file (`.md`) or you can write an HTML file directly.  It is much easier to write markdown than HTML, so I suggest you do that (use the tutorial above if you need to learn markdown). You can look at some files on this site to get an idea of how to write markdown. To look at existing files, click on any file that ends in `.md`, for example [`aboutme.md`](./aboutme.md). On the next page you can see some nicely formatted text (there is a word in bold, a link, bullet points), and if you click on the pencil icon to edit the file, you will see the markdown that generated the pretty text. Very easy!
+To add pages to your site, you can either write a markdown file (`.md`) or you can write an HTML file directly.  It is much easier to write markdown than HTML, so I suggest you do that (use the [tutorial I mentioned above](http://markdowntutorial.com/) if you need to learn markdown). You can look at some files on this site to get an idea of how to write markdown. To look at existing files, click on any file that ends in `.md`, for example [`aboutme.md`](./aboutme.md). On the next page you can see some nicely formatted text (there is a word in bold, a link, bullet points), and if you click on the pencil icon to edit the file, you will see the markdown that generated the pretty text. Very easy!
 
 In contrast, look at [`index.html`](./index.html). That's how your write HTML - not as pretty. So stick with markdown if you don't know HTML.
 
-Any file that you add inside the [`_posts`](./_posts) directory will be treated as a blog entry.  You can look at the existing files there to get an idea of how to write blog posts.  After you successfully add your own post, you can delete the existing files [`_posts`](./_posts), as those are just demo posts to help you learn.
+Any file that you add inside the [`_posts`](./_posts) directory will be treated as a blog entry.  You can look at the existing files there to get an idea of how to write blog posts.  After you successfully add your own post, you can delete the existing files inside [`_posts`](./_posts) to remove the sample posts, as those are just demo posts to help you learn.
 
 As mentioned previously, you can use [prose.io](http://prose.io/) to add or edit files instead of doing it directly on GitHub, it can be a little easier that way.
 
-### Last important thing: YAML front matter
+### Last important thing: YAML front matter ("parameters" for a page)
 
 In order to have your new pages use this template and not just be plain pages, you need to add [YAML front matter](http://jekyllrb.com/docs/frontmatter/) to the top of each page. This is where you'll give each page some parameters that I made available, such as a title and subtitle. I'll go into more detail about what parameters are available later. If you don't want to use any parameters on your new page (this also means having no title), then use the empty YAML front matter:
 
@@ -92,13 +92,13 @@ subtitle: Here you'll find all the ways to get in touch with me
 
 You can look at the top of [`aboutme.md`](./aboutme.md) or [`index.html`](./index.html) as more examples.
 
-**Important takeaway: always add the YAML front matter to every page, which is two lines with three dashes. If you have any parameters, they go between the two lines.**    
+**Important takeaway: ALWAYS add the YAML front matter to EVERY page, which is two lines with three dashes. If you have any parameters, they go between the two lines.**    
 If you don't include YAML then your file will not use the template.
 
-## Features
+## Basic Features
 
 #### Mobile-first
-**Beautiful Jekyll** is designed to look great on both large-screen and small-screen (mobile) devices. Load up your site on your phone and your gigantic iMac, and the site will work well on both, though it will look slightly different.
+**Beautiful Jekyll** is designed to look great on both large-screen and small-screen (mobile) devices. Load up your site on your phone or your gigantic iMac, and the site will work well on both, though it will look slightly different.
 
 #### Personalization
 
@@ -116,10 +116,10 @@ Beautiful Jekyll lets you easily add Google Analytics to all your pages. This wi
 
 #### Page types
 
-- **post** - To write a blog post, add a markdown or HTML file in the `_posts` folder and assign `layout: post` in the YAML front matter. Look at the existing blog post files to see examples of how to use YAML parameters in blog posts.
+- **post** - To write a blog post, add a markdown or HTML file in the `_posts` folder. As long as you give it YAML front matter (the two lines of three dashes), it will automatically be rendered like a blog post. Look at the existing blog post files to see examples of how to use YAML parameters in blog posts.
-- **page** - To add a non-blog page, add a markdown or HTML file in the root directory and assign `layout: page` in the YAML front matter. Look at `aboutme.md` and `index.html` as examples.
+- **page** - Any page outside the `_posts` folder that uses YAML front matter will have a very similar style to blog posts.
-- **minimal** - To add a random page with minimal styling (ie. without the bulky navigation bar and footer), assign `layout: minimal`.
+- **minimal** - If you want to create a page with minimal styling (ie. without the bulky navigation bar and footer), assign `layout: minimal` to the YAML front matter.
-- To write your own HTML page and completely bypass the Jekyll engine, simply omit the YAML front matter. Only do this if you know what you're doing.
+- If you want to completely bypass the template engine and just write your own HTML page, simply omit the YAML front matter. Only do this if you know how to write HTML!
 
 #### YAML front matter parameters
 
@@ -127,18 +127,18 @@ These are the main parameters you can place inside a page's YAML front matter th
 
 Parameter   | Description
 ----------- | -----------
-layout      | What type of page this is (recommended options are `page`, `post`, or `minimal`)
 title       | Page or blog post title
-subtitle    | Short description of page or blog post
+subtitle    | Short description of page or blog post that goes under the title
 bigimg      | Include a large full-width image at the top of the page.  You can either give the path to a single image, or provide a list of images to cycle through (see [my personal website](http://deanattali.com/) as an example).
-comments    | If you want do add Disqus comments to a specific page, use `comments: true`. Comments are automatically enabled on blog posts, to turn comments off for a specific post, use `comments: false`. Comments only work if you set your Disqus id in the _config.yml file.
+comments    | If you want do add Disqus comments to a specific page, use `comments: true`. Comments are automatically enabled on blog posts; to turn comments off for a specific post, use `comments: false`. Comments only work if you set your Disqus id in the `_config.yml` file.
 show-avatar | If you have an avatar configured in the `_config.yml` but you want to turn it off on a specific page, use `show-avatar: false`. If you want to turn it off by default, locate the line `show-avatar: true` in the file `_config.yml` and change the `true` to `false`; then you can selectively turn it on in specific pages using `show-avatar: true`.
+fb-img      | If you want to share a page on Facebook, by default Facebook will use the first image it can find on the page.  If you want to specify an image to use when sharing the page on Facebook, then provide the image's URL here
+layout      | What type of page this is (default is `blog` for blog posts and `page` for other pages. You can use `minimal` if you don't want a header and footer)  
 js          | List of local JavaScript files to include in the page (eg. `/js/mypage.js`)
 ext-js      | List of external JavaScript files to include in the page (eg. `//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/underscore.js/1.8.2/underscore-min.js`)
 css         | List of local CSS files to include in the page
 ex-css      | List of external CSS files to include in the page
 googlefonts | List of Google fonts to include in the page (eg. `["Monoton", "Lobster"]`)
-fb-img      | If you want to share a page on Facebook, by default Facebook will use the first image it can find on the page.  If you want to specify an image to use when sharing the page on Facebook, then provide the image's URL here
 
 ### RSS feed
 
@@ -154,23 +154,11 @@ To set up a GitHub Project page, simply fork this repository into a branch calle
 
 ---
 
-### More advanced features
+### Advanced features
 
 I wrote [a blog post](http://deanattali.com/2015/03/12/beautiful-jekyll-how-to-build-a-site-in-minutes/) describing some more advanced features that I used in my website that are applicable to any Jekyll site.  It describes how I used a custom URL for my site (deanattali.com instead of daattali.github.io), how to add a Google-powered search into your site, and provides a few more details about having an RSS feed. 
 
-### Advanced: Local development
+### Featured users (success stories!)
-
-Beautiful Jekyll is meant to be so simple to use that you can do it all within the browser. However, if you'd like to develop locally on your own machine, that's possible too if you're comfortable with command line. Folow these simple steps to do that with Vagrant:
-
-1. Install [VirtualBox](http://virtualbox.org) and [Vagrant](https://www.vagrantup.com)
-2. Clone your fork `git clone git@github.com:yourusername/yourusername.github.io.git`
-3. Inside your repository folder, run `vagrant up`
-4. View your website at `http://0.0.0.0:4000` on *nix or `http://127.0.0.1:4000` on Windows. 
-5. Commit any changes and push everything to the master branch of your GitHub repository. GitHub Pages will then rebuild and serve your website automatically.
-
-Disclaimer: I personally am NOT using local development so I don't know much about running Jekyll locally. If you follow this route, please don't ask me questions because unfortunately I honestly won't be able to help!
-
-### Featured users
 
 To my huge surprise, Beautiful Jekyll has been used in over 500 websites in its first 6 months. Here is a hand-picked selection of some websites that use Beautiful Jekyll.
 
@@ -203,6 +191,18 @@ Want your website featured here? [Contact me](http://deanattali.com/aboutme#cont
 | [melyanna.github.io](http://melyanna.github.io/) | Melyanna | Shows off her nice art |
 | [chaitanyajoshi.xyz](http://chaitanyajoshi.xyz/) | Chaitanya Joshi | Computer Science undergrad |
 
+### Advanced: Local development
+
+Beautiful Jekyll is meant to be so simple to use that you can do it all within the browser. However, if you'd like to develop locally on your own machine, that's possible too if you're comfortable with command line. Folow these simple steps to do that with Vagrant:
+
+1. Install [VirtualBox](http://virtualbox.org) and [Vagrant](https://www.vagrantup.com)
+2. Clone your fork `git clone git@github.com:yourusername/yourusername.github.io.git`
+3. Inside your repository folder, run `vagrant up`
+4. View your website at `http://0.0.0.0:4000` on *nix or `http://127.0.0.1:4000` on Windows. 
+5. Commit any changes and push everything to the master branch of your GitHub repository. GitHub Pages will then rebuild and serve your website automatically.
+
+Disclaimer: I personally am NOT using local development so I don't know much about running Jekyll locally. If you follow this route, please don't ask me questions because unfortunately I honestly won't be able to help!
+
 ### Credits
 
 This template was not made entirely from scratch. I would like to give special thanks to: