Website Content Guide

How the site works

The site is built with Jekyll and hosted on GitHub Pages at max-schmitz-foriest.com. The workflow is:

1. Edit files locally on your computer
2. Run git add, git commit, git push in the terminal
3. GitHub automatically rebuilds and publishes the site (takes 1–2 minutes)

You do not need to run Jekyll locally unless you want to preview changes before pushing.

Folder structure overview

sjmxschm.github.io/
├── _config.yml           ← Site-wide settings (your name, bio, email, social links)
├── _data/
│   ├── navigation.yml    ← Top navigation bar items
│   └── news.yml          ← News feed items shown on About page
├── _pages/
│   ├── about.md          ← About me / homepage
│   ├── cv.md             ← CV page
│   ├── publications.md   ← Publications page (auto-generated from _publications/)
│   ├── teaching.html     ← Teaching page (auto-generated from _teaching/)
│   ├── music.md          ← Music page
│   └── blog.md           ← Blog page
├── _publications/        ← One file per publication
├── _teaching/            ← One file per teaching entry
├── _sass/
│   └── _modern.scss      ← All custom styles (dark theme, cards, etc.)
├── images/               ← Images used on the site
│   └── logos/            ← Institution logos (EPFL, ELLIS, Georgia Tech, etc.)
└── files/                ← PDFs for download (thesis, paper preprints, etc.)

Site-wide settings (_config.yml)

To update your name, bio, location, or social links, edit _config.yml. Key fields:

author:
  name: "Max(imilian) Schmitz Foriest"
  bio: "ELLIS PhD Student in Robotics · EPFL LASA"
  location: "Lausanne, CH"
  email: contact@max-schmitz-foriest.com
  googlescholar: https://scholar.google.com/...
  github: "sjmxschm"
  linkedin: "sjmxschm"
  soundcloud: "makz-969860584"
  orcid: "https://orcid.org/..."

After editing _config.yml, Jekyll must fully rebuild (not just the changed page). Push to GitHub and wait ~2 minutes.

Navigation bar (_data/navigation.yml)

Controls which links appear in the top navigation. To add, remove, or reorder items, edit this file:

main:
  - title: "Publications"
    url: /publications/
  - title: "Teaching"
    url: /teaching/
  - title: "CV"
    url: /cv/
  - title: "Music"
    url: /music/

Each item needs a title (displayed text) and a url (path on the site).

Adding a publication (_publications/)

Create a new .md file in _publications/. The filename should follow the pattern YYYY-MM-DD-short-title.md where the date matches your frontmatter date: field.

File template

---
title: "Full paper title here"
collection: publications
type: "Journal Article"
permalink: /publication/YYYY-MM-DD-short-title
date: YYYY-MM-DD
venue: "Journal or Conference Name"
location: "City, Country"
authors: "Author One, Author Two, Author Three"
excerpt: 'One sentence summary shown in the card view.'
abstract: 'Longer abstract shown when the reader clicks "Abstract".'
paperurl: "https://doi.org/..."           # Link for "View Paper" button
preprint_url: "https://github.com/..."    # Link for "↓ Download" button
open_access: true                         # true = "Download Paper", false = "Download Preprint"
citation: "Author et al. (YYYY). Title. Journal."
bibtex: |
  @article{key,
    author = {Author, One},
    title = {Paper Title},
    journal = {Journal Name},
    year = {YYYY}
  }
---

Optional body text shown on the paper's detail page.

Type values (controls the badge color on the card)

Button logic

• paperurl present → shows a “View Paper” button (indigo)
• preprint_url present + open_access: true → shows “↓ Download Paper” (green)
• preprint_url present + open_access: false → shows “↓ Download Preprint” (green)
• For unpublished reports where you only want a download (no “View Paper”), use only preprint_url and omit paperurl

Example: unpublished report (download only)

preprint_url: "https://github.com/sjmxschm/sjmxschm.github.io/raw/master/files/myreport.pdf"
open_access: true
# no paperurl field

Adding a PDF for download

Put the PDF in the files/ folder and reference it as:

https://github.com/sjmxschm/sjmxschm.github.io/raw/master/files/yourfile.pdf

Adding a teaching entry (_teaching/)

Create a new .md file in _teaching/. The filename should start with the year: YYYY-description.md.

File template

---
title: "Course or Lecture Title"
collection: teaching
type: "Guest lecture"
permalink: /teaching/YYYY-short-title
venue: "Institution or Lab Name"
date: YYYY-MM-DD
location: "City, Country"
---

Description of the teaching activity. Can include multiple paragraphs, bullet lists, or links.

Type values

The date: field controls the year badge shown in the top-right corner of the card and also the sort order (newest first).

Adding news items (_data/news.yml)

The news feed on the About page reads from _data/news.yml. Add new items at the top of the list (newest first):

- date: "Jun 2026"
  content: "Paper published in <strong>IEEE Robotics &amp; Automation Magazine</strong> — <a href=\"https://...\">Title</a>."

- date: "Aug 2025"
  content: "Started as an <strong>ELLIS PhD Student</strong> at EPFL LASA."

Notes:

• date is a plain string (e.g., "Jun 2026") — no special format required
• content supports HTML: use <strong> for bold, <a href="..."> for links
• Inside YAML double-quoted strings, escape internal double quotes with \"

Updating the About page (_pages/about.md)

This is the homepage. Edit the Markdown directly. It uses the standard Markdown syntax plus some HTML for institution logo rows:

<div class="about-edu-row">
  <div class="cv-entry__logo--stack">
    <span class="logo-wrap"><img src="/images/logos/logo.png" alt="Institution"></span>
  </div>
  <div class="about-edu-row__text">
    <strong>Degree</strong> at <a href="https://...">Lab, Institution</a>
  </div>
</div>

Place logo image files in images/logos/.

Updating the CV page (_pages/cv.md)

The CV uses card-style entries with this HTML structure:

<div class="cv-section">
  <h2 class="cv-section__title">Section Name</h2>

  <div class="cv-entry">
    <div class="cv-entry__logo">
      <span class="logo-wrap"><img src="/images/logos/logo.png" alt="Org"></span>
    </div>
    <div class="cv-entry__body">
      <p class="cv-entry__title">Role / Degree Title</p>
      <p class="cv-entry__subtitle">Organization · Location</p>
    </div>
    <span class="cv-entry__period">2023 – present</span>
  </div>
</div>

The cv-entry__period (date/period) appears on the right side of the card.

Music page (_pages/music.md)

The music page contains:

1. An intro paragraph (editable plain text/markdown)
2. An embedded SoundCloud player (iframe)
3. Four platform cards: SoundCloud, Spotify, Linktree, DJ website
4. A producer contact box

To update the SoundCloud embed (e.g., to show a specific track instead of the full profile), replace the src URL in the iframe. The SoundCloud widget URL builder is at: https://soundcloud.com/pages/embed

To change platform links, update the href="..." values in the four <a class="music-card ..."> elements.

Style system (_sass/_modern.scss)

All custom CSS lives in _sass/_modern.scss. The site uses a dark theme with an indigo accent color (#818cf8). Key CSS variables come from _sass/_variables.scss (part of the base theme):

• $primary-color — indigo #818cf8
• $background-color — dark background
• $lighter-gray — card background color
• $border-color — subtle border color
• $gray — muted text color
• $text-color — main text color

To add styles for a new page, append a new section at the bottom of _modern.scss, following the existing /* ---... SECTION NAME ---... */ comment pattern.

Deploying changes

git add .
git commit -m "Brief description of what changed"
git push origin master

GitHub Pages rebuilds the site automatically. Changes are live within 1–2 minutes. You can monitor the build status in the Actions tab of the GitHub repository.

Branches

• master — the live published branch
• dev_updates — development branch for drafting changes before publishing

To publish changes from dev_updates to the live site, either push directly to master or open a pull request from dev_updates → master on GitHub.