Adding events

A note on the history of Openscapes events

Openscapes events used to live in a separate Quarto blog, hosted at openscapes.github.io/events (GitHub repo). We decided to integrate the events blog into the new openscapes.org Quarto site during the porting process. Now, all past and future events will be shared on the Events listing at openscapes.org/events.

Porting events from the original events blog to the new Openscapes website was relatively straightforward -- it involved copying (and slightly modifying) the listing page, as well as the folder of events (posts/) from the original events repository to the website-new repository.

We had hoped to take down the original openscapes.github.io/events site and create redirects for all URLs to the new openscapes.org/events posts. However, redirects didn't seem to work when the original site was decommissioned (e.g. going to https://openscapes.github.io/events/posts/2023-05-08-reflections/ would result in a 404 error rather than redirecting to https://openscapes.org/events/2023-05-08-reflections/. For now, the original events site will remain live, but the GitHub repo notes that the site has been deprecated and directs visitors to the new openscapes.org/events page.

Events organizational structure

A roadmap of the website-new repo, indicating where all event-related files should live:

Events listing page

events.qmd generates the listing page, which is linked in the website's navbar (under the Connect dropdown):

Here, you can control the general appearance/layout of the listing page (e.g. where this listing pulls posts from, how posts are sorted, what information is displayed on the listing page, etc.). Explore the Quarto documentation to learn more about listing options.

Upcoming Events listing

There's also a "mini" listing on the CONNECT WITH US page, which displays the most recent nine events (across three pages):

This too will be automatically updated when a new event is added. Note: it appears as though events must be written in .qmd files for them to appear here (.rmd files weren't showing up) -- this may have been user error, but be mindful. Configuration for this mini listing is done in the YAML of connect.qmd.

Adding a new event

1. Create a new subdirectory (folder) inside the events/ folder and name it using the following convention: YYYY-MM-DD-short-description (e.g. /events/2023-06-28-my-new-event). This folder name will become the slug of your post's URL (e.g. https:://openscapes.com/events/2023-06-28-my-new-event/)

2. Inside your new event folder, add a file named index.qmd (it must be named index.qmd) -- this is where you'll write your event post (e.g. /events/2023-06-28-my-new-event/index.qmd)

3. I recommend adding any images you plan to use in your event post to this same folder (including the preview image that appears on the listing page) so that you can easily call them using relative file paths (e.g. to add the image /events/2023-06-28-my-new-event/other-image.png, to your blog post, the file path would be, other-image.png, since it is relative to the index.qmd file within the same folder). Note: this is not required, but a suggested convention moving forward.

The _metadata.yml file

This file lives inside the /events directory (i.e. /events/_metadata.yml). Any metadata options specified in this file apply to all event posts within the /events directory.

Event post YAML

Event post-level metadata options are specified in the YAML metadata header of each index.qmd file. They all have this general structure (though you're not limited to these YAML options):

---
title: "blog post title"
description: "an optional short description" 
author: Author1, Author2, etc.
date: YYYY-MM-DD
categories:
  - community-call # list as many categories as you'd like
  - champions
  - noaa-fisheries
image: image.png # this image should live in the the event post's directory (folder); otherwise, specify a relative file path
---

Draft posts

Adding draft: true to the YAML means when the site is built you won’t see it on the listing page but can find it at the direct url!

Categories

At the time of this website's initial deployment, events are tagged using the following categories (based off initial discussions with Julie):

• champions
• community-call
• conference
• event
• mentorship
• nasa-framework
• noaa-fisheries
• talk
• workshop