5 Adapting our template

Citing us

If you use this template for your course, please cite us as indicated on the home page.

If you want to use our template for your own course, you will likely want to adapt it to your own branding and requirements..

This page explains how to copy the template and customise it for your course.

In the examples below we use:

my-course as the new repository name
yourusername as your GitHub username

Make sure to adapt the commands to your own username and chosen repository name.

5.1 Copying the template

We recommend copying the template without keeping its history rather than forking. This gives you a clean slate without maintaining a link to the original repository.

Clone the template repository into a new local directory:

git clone https://github.com/cambiotraining/quarto-course-template.git my-course
cd my-course

Remove the .git directory to start without the repository’s history:

rm -rf .git

5.2 Customising the theme

Before creating your own repository, update the template locally to match your branding.

5.2.1 Add your own theme

In the _quarto.yml file, replace format: crit-format-html with:

format:
  html:
  theme: [default, my-theme/theme.scss]
  toc: true
  number-sections: true
  number-depth: 3
  code-link: true
  code-copy: true
  lightbox: true

Create the my-theme/ directory and copy the template theme files:

mkdir my-theme
cp _extensions/cambiotraining/crit-format/theme.scss my-theme/theme.scss

Edit my-theme/theme.scss to adjust colours, fonts, and logos to match your branding.
Update the rest of _quarto.yml with your title, logo, social media links, and other details.

5.2.2 Remove CRIT branding

Remove the CRIT extension from your project:
```
quarto remove cambiotraining/crit-format
```
Remove the GitHub Actions workflow that updates CRIT extensions:
```
rm .github/workflows/update_extensions.yml
```

5.2.3 Test locally

Test the site build locally before proceeding:

quarto render

Check that the site renders correctly with your own branding.

5.3 Initialise a new Git repository

Once customisation is complete, initialise a fresh Git repository:

git init
git add .
git commit -m "Initial commit: customised course template"

5.4 Create a GitHub repository and push

Create a new repository on GitHub called my-course (do not initialise it with a README, .gitignore, or licence).
Go to Settings > Actions and:
- Select “Allow all actions and reusable workflows”
- Select “Read and write permissions” (required for the deployment workflow)
- Tick “Allow GitHub Actions to create and approve pull requests”
Push your code to GitHub:

git branch -M main
git remote add origin https://github.com/yourusername/my-course.git
git push -u origin main

5.5 Publish the site

Go to GitHub and open the Actions tab.
- An action called Deploy should run after your push.
- Confirm the action completes successfully.
- A new gh-pages branch is created once complete.
Go to Settings > Pages and under Build and deploy:
- Source: “Deploy from a branch”
- Branch: “gh-pages” > Save
Your site publishes to yourusername.github.io/my-course/ (may take a few minutes to appear).

Remember to check other sections of this documentation to customise the course content to your needs.