SMU Researcher Club website

This is the source for the SMU Researcher Club website. It's built with Quarto (a document/website publishing tool) and hosted on GitHub Pages.

This README is a step-by-step guide for adding a new event to the site — written so you can do it even if you've never touched Quarto before. If anything is unclear, the existing files in events/ are the best examples to copy from.

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The big picture (read this once)

• Every event is a single text file in the events/ folder, ending in .qmd.
• Add a new .qmd file there, and it automatically appears in two places — no other edits needed:
  1. The Activities page (the full, filterable list)
  2. The Recent activities strip on the homepage (shows the 3 newest by date)
• After adding the file, you preview it locally to check it looks right, then publish it so the live site updates.

That's the whole workflow. The rest of this document is the detail.

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One-time setup

You only do this once on your computer.

1. Install Quarto — download from quarto.org/docs/get-started and run the installer. (RStudio is not required — you can use any text editor, e.g. VS Code.)
2. Install Git if you don't have it — git-scm.com.
3. Get the project files. In a terminal:

   git clone https://github.com/smu-libraries/smurc.git
   cd smurc

   (If you already have the folder, run git pull inside it to get the latest version first.)

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Adding a new event — step by step

Step 1 — Copy an existing event as your starting point

The easiest and safest way. Duplicate any file in events/ and rename it. For example, copy events/2025-05-29-inside-research-careers.qmd to a new name.

Filename format: YYYY-MM-DD-short-title.qmd

• Start with the event date (2026-03-15), then a few words describing it, all lowercase, joined by hyphens.
• Examples: 2026-03-15-latex-for-thesis.qmd, 2026-09-01-grant-writing-panel.qmd
• The date in the filename is just for tidy ordering — the date that actually matters is in the file (Step 2).

Step 2 — Edit the top section (the "front matter")

The block between the two --- lines at the very top controls how the event is listed. Edit each field:

---
title: "Your Event Title Here"
description: "One or two sentences summarising the event. This shows up in the listing."
date: 2026-03-15
categories: [2026, workshop, tools]
author: "SMU Researcher Club"
---

Field	What to put
title	The event name, in quotes.
description	A short summary (1–2 sentences). Appears under the title in the listing.
date	The event date in YYYY-MM-DD format. No quotes. This drives sorting.
categories	Tags in square brackets, comma-separated. See conventions below.
author	Leave as "SMU Researcher Club".

⚠️ Keep the two --- lines. They mark the start and end of the settings block. Don't delete them.

Step 3 — Write the event body

Below the front matter is the page content. Keep the same structure as the other events so the site stays consistent:

• An At a glance table (date, time, venue, format)
• An About this session paragraph or two
• A Speakers / Panellists list, if any
• Optionally a Resources section for recording/recap links

The simplest approach: keep the copied file's layout and just replace the words. A ready-to-fill template is at the bottom of this README.

Step 4 — Preview it locally

From the project folder, run:

quarto preview

This opens the site in your browser and refreshes automatically as you save. Check that:

• Your new event shows on the Activities page and (if it's recent) the homepage.
• The date, title, and links look right.

Press Ctrl + C in the terminal to stop the preview when done.

Step 5 — Publish it to the live site

Two things happen here: save your change to the project history, then push the built site live.

git add .
git commit -m "Add event: your event title"
git push
quarto publish gh-pages

• The first three lines save your new file to the shared project (main branch on GitHub).
• quarto publish gh-pages builds the site and pushes it to the live GitHub Pages address. When it asks to confirm, say yes.

Give it a minute or two, then check the live site.

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Category conventions

Categories power the filter buttons on the Activities page, so consistency matters — reuse existing tags rather than inventing near-duplicates. Each event's categories list should include:

1. The year (always) — e.g. 2026
2. The event type — one of: panel, workshop, webinar, talks, seminar
3. A series tag (only if it belongs to a series) — e.g. publication-series, ai-tools-series, try-it-together
4. Topic tags (optional, as many as fit) — e.g. ai-tools, professional-development, writing-bootcamp, tools, commercialisation, networking, citations

Example: categories: [2026, panel, professional-development]

💡 To see tags already in use, glance at the top of a few files in events/ and match their spelling exactly (tags are case- and spelling-sensitive: ai-tools ≠ AI Tools).

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Handy extras

Adding an event image — put this line just under the front matter:

![](https://link-to-your-image.png)

You can link to an image hosted online, or drop an image file in the project and reference it by filename.

Coloured info boxes (callouts) — like the "Part of the … Series" notes:

::: {.callout-note}
Your note text here.
:::

A link — [text to show](https://the-url.com)

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Ready-to-fill event template

Copy everything below into a new events/YYYY-MM-DD-your-title.qmd file and replace the placeholders:

---
title: "EVENT TITLE"
description: "One or two sentences summarising the event."
date: 2026-01-01
categories: [2026, workshop, tools]
author: "SMU Researcher Club"
---

## At a glance

|              |                                               |
|--------------|-----------------------------------------------|
| **Date**     | Day, DD Month 2026                            |
| **Time**     | 0:00 AM – 0:00 PM                             |
| **Venue**    | Venue name                                    |
| **Format**   | Workshop / Panel / Webinar                    |

## About this session

Describe the event here.

## Speakers

- **Speaker Name** — Title, Organisation

<!-- Add slides, recordings, or a write-up here after the event. -->

---

If something goes wrong

• Preview shows an error — most often a typo in the front matter. Check that the two --- lines are intact, date is in YYYY-MM-DD form with no quotes, and every " has a matching pair.
• Event isn't showing — make sure the file is inside events/, ends in .qmd, and has a valid date.
• Stuck? The existing files in events/ are all working examples — copy one that resembles the event you're adding.