# Including ORCID link in the footer of Jekyll Minima

**URL:** <https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/including-orcid-link-in-the-footer-of-jekyll-minima/5409>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [December 29, 2020, 3:38am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/including-orcid-link-in-the-footer-of-jekyll-minima/5409 "2020-12-29T03:38:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 12\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Emadmasroor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/db5fbb/32.png) [@Emadmasroor](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/Emadmasroor)\
**Post date:** [December 29, 2020, 3:38am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/including-orcid-link-in-the-footer-of-jekyll-minima/5409/1 "2020-12-29T03:38:44Z")

</div>

Hello,

I am quite new to Jekyll, and I have a question about adding an additional (possibly custom) ‘social’ link at the bottom of my [website](https://emadmasroor.github.io/).

I have a simple website using the minima theme of Jekyll, hosted on Github pages. I was wondering if there is a simple way to include your [ORCID](https://orcid.org) in the site’s footer, similar to how a Github, Facebook, or Twitter profile can be added by simply adding the corresponding username to the `_config.yml`.

According to the website, this would be done by included something like the following HTML on your page:

```auto
<div itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/Person"><a itemprop="sameAs" content="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8770-1429" href="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8770-1429" target="orcid.widget" rel="me noopener noreferrer" style="vertical-align:top;"><img src="https://orcid.org/sites/default/files/images/orcid_16x16.png" style="width:1em;margin-right:.5em;" alt="ORCID iD icon">https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8770-1429</a></div>

```

there is a commonly used ORCID logo which looks like this: ![image](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/uploads/jekyllrb/original/2X/8/839d6819e8d600cc6c447454ddf5c634755d036b.png), which is ideally suited for the minima theme’s aesthetic of having a small icon for each service (Twitter, fb, Github, etc). A lot of journals use this.

Ideally, I would just add something like `ORCID: xxxx` inside `_config.yml` and it would ‘just work’, but I’m willing to make a workaround if it’s easy to implement.

Has anyone tried to implement this?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MichaelCurrin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/michaelcurrin/32/2340_2.png) [@MichaelCurrin](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/MichaelCurrin)\
**Post date:** [December 29, 2020, 7:12am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/including-orcid-link-in-the-footer-of-jekyll-minima/5409/2 "2020-12-29T07:12:59Z")

</div>

Hi. Yes there is a pattern for this in minima.

Create a file in your repo to override the theme’s one. Copy the content of the theme social file.

`_includes/social.html`

[Link](https://github.com/jekyll/minima/blob/master/_includes/social.html) to theme file.

Have a look at `footer.html` in the theme to see that getting called.

Then add a line after the last icon or whatever to add your own HTML.

Get your snippet to reference `{{ social.orcid }}`

Add a line to your config.

```auto
social:
  facebook: abc123
  orcid: 0000-0002-8770-1429

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Emadmasroor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/db5fbb/32.png) [@Emadmasroor](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/Emadmasroor)\
**Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 11:14pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/including-orcid-link-in-the-footer-of-jekyll-minima/5409/3 "2021-01-02T23:14:29Z")

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Thanks, this is very helpful! However, when I follow your instructions, my website stops displaying even the Github icon (which is the only one that currently gets displayed). It seems that the trouble is caused by using a snippet like this in my `_config.yml`:

```auto
social:
    github: emadmasroor

```

instead of what I had before, which was simply:

```auto
github_username: emadmasroor

```

This happens whether or not I put my own copy of `social.html` inside `_includes`, I don’t think this should make a difference since at this stage my `social.html` is identical to the theme default which you linked to in your post.

I doubt the ORCID icon will work unless I first figure out what I’m doing wrong at this step. Do you have any ideas?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Emadmasroor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/db5fbb/32.png) [@Emadmasroor](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/Emadmasroor)\
**Post date:** [January 3, 2021, 2:57am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/including-orcid-link-in-the-footer-of-jekyll-minima/5409/4 "2021-01-03T02:57:24Z")

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Some more observations:

I think part of the problem here was that the [file](https://github.com/jekyll/minima/blob/master/_includes/footer.html) over at the Jekyll Minima repository called `_includes/footer.html` did not correspond to what is generated when I build my site without a custom `_includes/footer.html`. So, I did ctrl+u on my built web page and copied all the html past the `<footer>` tag into my local `_includes/footer.html`. Then, I added an additional column to this footer and in that column, I put `{% include social.html %}` after making a modified version of the original `social.html`, as you suggested. However, this does not work – **nothing is rendered** in that fourth column of the header!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MichaelCurrin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/michaelcurrin/32/2340_2.png) [@MichaelCurrin](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/MichaelCurrin)\
**Post date:** [January 3, 2021, 11:23am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/including-orcid-link-in-the-footer-of-jekyll-minima/5409/5 "2021-01-03T11:23:02Z")

</div>

I don’t know what’s up with that. I’ll try it locally now.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MichaelCurrin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/michaelcurrin/32/2340_2.png) [@MichaelCurrin](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/MichaelCurrin)\
**Post date:** [January 3, 2021, 12:47pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/including-orcid-link-in-the-footer-of-jekyll-minima/5409/7 "2021-01-03T12:47:03Z")

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Okay I see the issue. My apologies - I didn’t know how much had changed in the social sections between the last Minima release 2.5.1 and the files on master which I had linked you to.

You had copied from the latest minima which expects social links like this:

> <https://github.com/jekyll/minima/blob/master/_config.yml#L14-L20>

You misunderstood how `social.github` was read. The `social` reference was just a reference to `minima.social-links` at [social.html](https://github.com/jekyll/minima/blob/master/_includes/social.html#L1) on master.

* * *

The approach you need to use in your config for Minima 2.5.1 is like this [config](https://github.com/jekyll/minima/blob/v2.5.1/_config.yml#L9-L12).

e.g.

```auto
github_username: abc
orcid: 123

```

I’ve made a PR to fix your config, social.html file and delete footer.html 🙂

> <https://github.com/Emadmasroor/emadmasroor.github.io/pull/3>

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Emadmasroor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/db5fbb/32.png) [@Emadmasroor](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/Emadmasroor)\
**Post date:** [January 3, 2021, 2:53pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/including-orcid-link-in-the-footer-of-jekyll-minima/5409/8 "2021-01-03T14:53:28Z")

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I just merged all three of your pull requests. Thank you so much! You’re a star ⭐🙂

On an unrelated note, I’ve been looking around on the internet for good templates of academic websites that I could learn from. Although I really love minima for its simplicity, it seems that [this theme](https://github.com/alshedivat/al-folio) could be a good option. It uses a plugin `jekyll-scholar`, though, which isn’t supported by Github Pages’ automatic build process, and so the theme author has provided a [script](https://github.com/alshedivat/al-folio/blob/master/bin/deploy) that can circumvent this restriction.

I do need to eventually migrate to something that can automatically generate a nicely-formatted bibliography from a `*.bib` file, and a theme which retains a minima-like aesthetic while implementing `jekyll-scholar` seems like a good idea.

Do you have any advice to offer?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Emadmasroor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/db5fbb/32.png) [@Emadmasroor](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/Emadmasroor)\
**Post date:** [January 3, 2021, 3:01pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/including-orcid-link-in-the-footer-of-jekyll-minima/5409/9 "2021-01-03T15:01:51Z")

</div>

Edit: the `_config.yml` of that theme seems a bit daunting. Maybe this is not such a good idea at this stage…

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MichaelCurrin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/michaelcurrin/32/2340_2.png) [@MichaelCurrin](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/MichaelCurrin)\
**Post date:** [January 4, 2021, 5:36am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/including-orcid-link-in-the-footer-of-jekyll-minima/5409/10 "2021-01-04T05:36:56Z")

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I’m glad to see those merged and that it works for you.

Yes that theme has a long config including some stuff which you won’t want to change or won’t ever use. The theme also is not installable using a gemspec file in the root which means you have to fork the entire repo to use it. This is messy.

Ideally you find a theme with has a gemspec file or you make an issue to create one. Then you can install a theme like this without forking it.

> **[MichaelCurrin/jekyll-theme-quickstart - Custom CI flow](https://github.com/MichaelCurrin/jekyll-theme-quickstart/tree/master#custom-ci-flow)**
>
> master

If you are comfortable with Jekyll and that theme is overwhelming, you could use a site which installs the minima theme and then you add Jekyll scholar plugin yourself. You’d have to update some layouts and includes files maybe but you’ll have al-folio repo as a working reference.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MichaelCurrin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/michaelcurrin/32/2340_2.png) [@MichaelCurrin](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/MichaelCurrin)\
**Post date:** [January 4, 2021, 5:43am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/including-orcid-link-in-the-footer-of-jekyll-minima/5409/11 "2021-01-04T05:43:42Z")

</div>

Regarding custom deploys, I can see that the deploy scripts works fine. But it can only be run manually from your machine which is annoying if you like to edit and deploy using GitHub.

I can highly recommend Netlify.

> **[Netlify](https://michaelcurrin.github.io/code-cookbook/recipes/ci-cd/netlify/)**
>
> How to setup a Netlify site

As you just need a build command like

```auto
build: jekyll build

```

And it will install and use any custom gems. You even have to set any installs steps for Ruby or Bundler.

Then you serve a site on Netlify domain similar to GitHub Pages. Netlify points to your GH repo and builds on changes.

Also Netlify doesn’t need a gh-pages branch. It just builds from master or something and serves the outputted site directory which it stores internally.

You can also use GH Actions to build the gh-pages branch for you on commit or push, so you can keep using GH Pages.

I wrote a tutorial about this:

> **[GitHub Actions](https://jekyllrb.com/docs/continuous-integration/github-actions/)**
>
> When building a Jekyll site with GitHub Pages, the standard flow is restricted for security reasons and to make it simpler to get a site setup. For more control over the build and still host the site with GitHub Pages you can use GitHub Actions.

I also found a similar action which handles install and build only and then add an extra step to deploy. See the last section here

> **[Build](https://michaelcurrin.github.io/code-cookbook/recipes/ci-cd/github-actions/workflows/jekyll/build.html#jekyll-action-ts)**
>
> Build a Jekyll site in GH Actions

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Emadmasroor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/db5fbb/32.png) [@Emadmasroor](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/Emadmasroor)\
**Post date:** [January 4, 2021, 4:43pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/including-orcid-link-in-the-footer-of-jekyll-minima/5409/12 "2021-01-04T16:43:26Z")

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Thanks for the advice! At the moment, I think the minima theme rendered by Github pages works fine, but as my site becomes more complex I will probably need to migrate to a more flexible option. I will keep Netlify in mind, but I think I wouldn’t mind building locally and pushing the `_site` folder to a `gh-pages` branch.

I’m going to try and pare down `al-folio` to a manageable size, remove extraneous features, and experiment locally with it before I make the switch.

One more question: Can I use Github Actions to build the gh-pages branch if I’m using unapproved plugins like jekyll-scholar?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MichaelCurrin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/michaelcurrin/32/2340_2.png) [@MichaelCurrin](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/MichaelCurrin)\
**Post date:** [January 4, 2021, 9:13pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/including-orcid-link-in-the-footer-of-jekyll-minima/5409/13 "2021-01-04T21:13:45Z")

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Indeed. The tutorial linked above mentions that as the main selling point - you can use any gems you want to install whether plugins or themes.

And you can add ruby script to `_plugins` directory - normally GitHub Pages prevents that from running as potentially unsafe code.