Cláudia Brito

Cláudia Brito

Assistant Researcher at HASLab, INESC TEC and University of Minho. Invited assistant professor at University of Minho.

Site Roadmap — claudiavmbrito.github.io

Site Roadmap — claudiavmbrito.github.io

A plan to clean up template cruft, fix SEO/metadata, and apply a light visual rebrand while staying on academicpages / Jekyll (GitHub Pages). Scope chosen: light restyle — distinctive identity without a platform migration.

Work top to bottom. Each item is independently shippable.

Phase 1 — Cleanup & repo hygiene ✅ DONE

  • Untrack committed artifacts: untracked Gemfile.lock and files/.DS_Store (kept on disk), removed the stray _tryouts.textClipping.
  • Update .gitignore — added Gemfile.lock, .bundle/, *.textClipping.
  • Delete stock demo posts in _posts/ (all 5) + _drafts/post-draft.md.
  • Delete demo pages in _pages/: markdown.md, non-menu-page.md, archive-layout-with-content.md, terms.md.
  • Remove dead duplicates & disabled features: _pages/talks.html (duplicate /talks/ permalink — talks.md is the maintained one), _pages/teaching.html (fully commented out), and the disabled talkmap feature (_pages/talkmap.html, talkmap.ipynb, talkmap.py, talkmap/). Also removed the orphan _pages/tryouts.md demo page + its tryout_horizontal.html include.
  • Rewrite README.md — now describes this site + local build steps.

Correction discovered during cleanup: _tryouts/ is not abandoned — it holds the conference posters rendered in the Posters section of talks.md (via tryout.html). It was kept. The misleading name could be renamed to _posters in a later phase (collection rename + update talks.md + _config.yml).

Phase 2 — Metadata & SEO ✅ DONE

  • title — set to "Cláudia Brito" (proper casing).
  • description — replaced the "personal description" placeholder with a real one-line meta description (research focus + affiliations).
  • og_image — set to cvmbrito.jpg (the portrait in /images/) for link previews (LinkedIn, X, Slack). Optional later: a dedicated 1200×630 banner reads better than a portrait crop on some platforms.
  • social: block — type: Person, name, and links (sameAs) pointing to Scholar, ORCID, LinkedIn, GitHub for structured data / JSON-LD.
  • author.linkedin — added (claudiavmbrito); now shows in the sidebar icons.
  • google_site_verification — deferred by choice. Add the token later from Search Console (one-line change at the google_site_verification key in _config.yml).
  • Scholar + ORCID already render in the sidebar (verified configured).
  • Template bug fixes found while testing: (1) _includes/seo.html only emitted og:image for pages with a header.image, so site.og_image never reached link previews — added a site.og_image fallback. (2) The homepage og:description was “About me” (from about.md’s excerpt) — added a real description to about.md front matter. Both verified in the built HTML.

Verified: bundle install + jekyll build run clean (Ruby 3.4 via Homebrew); all nav pages + poster pages return HTTP 200 on a local serve.

Phase 3 — Light visual rebrand ✅ DONE

Goal: stop looking like the default Minimal Mistakes gray template.

  • Accent color → petrol teal #0d6e6e (hover #0a5252). Added $accent-color /$accent-color-hover in _sass/_variables.scss; $primary-color, $link-color, masthead links and $purple-color (theme var) all derive from it.
  • Typography — $header-font-family set to "Roboto Slab" (slab serif) for headings, body stays system sans. Roboto Slab was already being loaded, so no new font import needed.
  • Dark mode (full) — enabled the previously-commented dark-mode block in _includes/head.html; fixed the missing highlight_theme_light element (was throwing a JS error); added a sun/moon toggle button (#light-toggle) to the masthead; wrote core dark overrides in _sass/_themes.scss (body/masthead/nav/ links/sidebar/footer/code/tables/notices) since the base theme uses fixed colors. Persists via localStorage and respects prefers-color-scheme. Verified in a real Chromium browser: light #fff/teal, dark #1c1c1d/#36c5c0, toggle + persistence across pages all working.
  • Homepage News block — added a dated ## News section to _pages/about.md (4 recent items: OHANA @ CBMS 2026, Holpaca @ ICPE 2026, CENTRA 8 talk, 2024 role).
  • Author sidebar — renders cleanly with the teal accent in both themes (avatar, name, location, social icons); dark-mode colors handled in _themes.scss.
  • Favicon / touch icons — the template linked 14 icon files that did not exist (all 404). Generated a teal “CB” monogram favicon set with ImageMagick (favicon-16/32/96, apple-touch-icon ×9, android-chrome-192, multi-res favicon.ico) into images/; removed the broken shortcut icon link in head.html; set mobile theme-color / tile color to teal.

Verified: clean jekyll build; all nav pages + favicon assets return HTTP 200; homepage + content pages screenshotted in both light and dark with good contrast.

Phase 4 — Content workflow & polish

  • Publications maintenance — decide between (a) keep the hand-edited _pages/publications.md, or (b) regenerate from BibTeX/TSV using the existing markdown_generator/ tooling. Pick one and document it in the README.
  • Verify image pipeline — imagemagick/WebP is enabled in _config.yml:359; confirm bundle exec jekyll build actually produces the responsive images, or disable it if unused (it needs ImageMagick installed locally).
  • Local build check — bundle install && bundle exec jekyll serve runs clean with no warnings before pushing.
  • Link check — verify PDF links under /files/ and external DOIs resolve.

Notes

  • Platform decision: staying on academicpages/Jekyll. Content is portable, free on GitHub Pages, and already well-populated. A full migration (al-folio / Astro / Next.js) was considered and rejected for now — not worth re-porting all content unless a specific must-have feature emerges.
  • Branding recommendation: the content is current and strong; what dates the site is the stock template look. The light restyle in Phase 3 delivers most of the visual impact for a fraction of a redesign’s effort.