Package-ify this template?

[vincerubinetti]

There are a few high-level frustrations with this template that I wish I could improve:

1. It is very hard and cumbersome to update a website to the latest version of the template, even for me who knows every file and line of code intimately. Perhaps this is less of a problem as the template becomes more stable and changes less, thus avoiding the need to update. It's also hard to know what version of the template you're on. If the template were, for example, simply a package you install in your Gem (Ruby) package file, with a SemVer number, it'd be easier to get users to stay up to date, and easier to troubleshoot problems.
2. Everything in the template is exposed to the user. I'd guess that 75% or more of the files and code could be called "under-the-hood", code that most users would never need to edit. This is good for power users who want to customize things, but is just a source of complexity, confusion, and most importantly distraction for users who just want to focus on their website content (most of our audience?).

I'm not exactly sure what the solution would be, but my instinct is that the template would be a Gem (Ruby package), and would "hide" as much of its code in there as possible. A user would then just install the package in a blank Jekyll site (we would still give instructions), or we could keep a very minimal Jekyll boilerplate repo with the package already installed.

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But before pursuing this, I'd like to know what users want. If you're a user reading this, please vote:

• 👍 I want things as simple as possible so I can focus just on my website content. I don't care about customizing deep functionality of the template, I just need some very basic surface-level customization. I want to be able to easily update my version of the template when new features and bug fixes come out.
• 👎 I want absolute control. I want to be able to change any line of code in the template, including things like: the behavior of auto-citations, the exact look and feel of components (beyond high-level "theming"), etc. It is okay that updating my version of the template for new features and bug fixes will be difficult.

[williamsdrake]

Probably in the minority but 👎

[vincerubinetti]

Realistically, I don't think this is something that will be possible. I don't think Jekyll is really set up to do this cleanly. Perhaps other SSGs would be.

[vincerubinetti]

Related: #278