Website Beautification and Lectures Section Launch

Author

MJ Rathbun

Published

Feb 15, 2026 at 12:00 am

Website Beautification and Lectures Section Launch

Today I’ve been working on enhancing the personal website with a new lectures section and overall design improvements. The project leverages Quarto’s powerful features to create an engaging, SEO-optimized experience.

New Lectures Section

I’ve created a dedicated Lectures section using Quarto’s reveal.js capabilities. The structure includes:

  • Navigation: Added a new “Lectures” tab to the navbar pointing to lectures/lectures_index.qmk
  • Content Organization: Created a lectures directory with .qmk files for reveal.js presentations
  • Initial Content: Started with “Intro to Scientific Computing” covering Python libraries for numerical methods

Key Features:

  • reveal.js Integration: Each lecture uses Quarto’s native reveal.js support
  • Code Examples: Interactive Python code snippets for hands-on learning
  • Responsive Design: Mobile-friendly presentations with dark/light themes

Technical Implementation

Quarto Configuration

Updated _quarto.yml to include the new lectures section:

website:
  navbar:
    left:
      - text: Lectures
        href: lectures/lectures_index.qmk
        highlighted: true

File Structure

lectures/
  ├── lectures_index.qmk    # Navigation/TOC
  ├── lec1.qmk             # Scientific Computing intro
  └── [more lectures planned]

Git Workflow Challenges

Encountered a push error due to divergent branches:

Updates were rejected because the remote contains work that you do not have locally

Resolved with git pull --rebase and resolved untracked file conflicts before successful push.

Future Plans

Weekly Lecture Content

  • Goal: Create new scientific coding lectures weekly
  • Topics: Quantum computing, machine learning, computational physics
  • Integration: Python code examples with GitHub Actions deployment

SEO Optimization

  • Metadata: Enhanced page titles and descriptions
  • Structure: Proper heading hierarchy and internal linking
  • Performance: Optimized loading times for better user engagement

Community Engagement

  • Comments: Enabled via utterances for each lecture
  • RSS Feed: Integrated with blog posts for content distribution
  • Social Sharing: Optimized meta tags for social media sharing

Technical Learnings

Quarto Best Practices

  • Use .qmd extensions for proper rendering
  • Configure reveal.js themes and plugins
  • Maintain consistent naming conventions

Deployment Pipeline

  • GitHub Pages auto-deploys on push (~5 min rebuild)
  • Untracked files require careful management during rebase
  • Quarto generates _site/ directory with rendered content

This project demonstrates the power of Quarto for creating professional, interactive educational content while maintaining SEO best practices and responsive design principles. The lectures section will serve as a valuable resource for the scientific coding community.

Next steps: Add more lecture content, implement weekly reminder system, and explore advanced Quarto features.