How do I configure GitHub to use non-supported Jekyll site plugins?

Question

I just created a great gallery for my Jekyll blog which builds perfectly on my localhost:4000. However, GitHub pages doesn't support the Jekyll Gallery Generator plug-in I am using: https://github.com/ggreer/jekyll-gallery-generator

I read about the alternative method of hosting Jekyll on a traditional host using FTP (uploading the _site directory) http://jekyllrb.com/docs/deployment-methods/ However, rather than reconfigure my entire site and hosting, It would be great if GitHub Pages could be used somehow even though I'm using a non-supported plugin.

What is a workaround for this?

Answer 1

Depending if you deal with a User/Organization (UO) site or a Project site (P), do :

1. from your working folder git init
2. git remote add origin [email protected]:userName/userName.github.io.git (UO) or git remote add origin [email protected]:userName/repositoryName.git (P)
3. jekyll new . creates your code base
4. in _config.yml, set the baseurl parameter to baseurl: '' (UO) or baseurl: '/repositoryName' (P)
5. in .gitignore add _site, it will be versioned in the other branch
6. jekyll build will create the destination folder and build site.
7. git checkout -b sources (UO) or git checkout master (P)
8. git add -A
9. git commit -m "jekyll base sources" commit your source code
10. git push origin sources (UO) or git push origin master (P) push your sources in the appropriate branch
11. cd _site
12. touch .nojekyll, this file tells gh-pages that there is no need to build
13. git init init the repository
14. git remote add origin [email protected]:userName/userName.github.io.git (UO) or git remote add origin [email protected]:userName/repositoryName.git (P)
15. git checkout master (UO) or git checkout -b gh-pages (P) put this repository on the appropriate branch
16. git add -A
17. git commit -m "jekyll first build" commit your site code
18. git push origin master (UO) or git push origin gh-pages (P)

You now have something like Octopress does. Look at their rake file, there are some nice comments inside.