Albert Rapp Profile picture
May 31 10 tweets 6 min read
I am rebuilding my #rstats blog from the bottom up with #quarto. This will let me use quarto's cool new tricks like tabs and easy columns.

I've already spent hours using quarto's great docs to build a custom blog. If you want to do the same, let me show you what I did. ImageImage
Today, I will show you the first of many steps to your own quarto blog. First, create a new quarto blog project via RStudio.

Make sure to create a git repo as well. This lets you revert changes when you break your blog. You can follow along my repo at github.com/AlbertRapp/qua…
You can render your blog with `Render Website` from RStudio's `Build` tab.

The first easy changes happen in the `_quarto.yml` file.

1⃣ Set `theme: default`
2⃣ Name your blog via `title`
3⃣ Link your GitHub profile etc.

This will change the navbar at the top of your blog. ImageImage
Now, make the about page into a landing page.

This let's you introduce your blog's highlights to your readers before they are flooded by a list of your blog posts.

Rename 
`index.qmd` -> `blog.qmd` 
`about.qmd` -> `index.qmd`

& change reference of `about.qmd` in `_quarto.yml` ImageImage
Once again, adjust your blog's navbar. Go to `blog.qmd` and change `title` .

You see, in `_quarto.yml` you reference to websites or other quarto docs. These will show up in the navbar. In this case, the title of the quarto doc decides the title in the navbar. ImageImage
Create a new blog posts by creating a blank `.qmd`-file in the directory `posts/new`.

Here, I have populated the file's YAML header with a few basic properties. And I filled the file with a bit of text, code chunks, math parts etc.

You can find the file in my repo. ImageImageImage
The new post was rendered by clicking `Render Website` in RStudio's `Build` tab.

This will render all `.qmd`-files that have not been rendered before. If you make changes to a blog post later on, then you will have to render the respective `.qmd`-file manually.
During your active writing process, you can activate `Render on Save` in RStudio. Then, on every Ctrl+S your post will be rerendered.

Remember, all other blog posts remain unchanged by this. Let's take a look into the `posts/_metadata.yml` file to see why.
You can see that this file sets `freeze: true`. This means that all `.qmd`-files within the `posts` directory will only be RErendered if done explicitly.

In `_metadata.yml` we can define more YAML options for all blog posts. For example, we can generate tables of content. ImageImageImage
These were the first steps to build a #quarto blog from the bottom up. There is lots more to come.

We'll cover
- Custom colors/fonts/landing pages
- Comments
- Newsletter signups
- Build robust #rstats posts with {renv}
- More, more, more

Follow @rappa753 to not miss out.

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More from @rappa753

Apr 19
Last week, I held a short workshop teaching #RStats to Economics students without prior programming experience.

Here are 6 lessons I learnt that I wish I had known in advance.
1⃣ Do less.

An ambitious curriculum is usually my thing. But I did not anticipate how much time it would take to get students back on track.

Without any programming experience, students will get stuck in unexpected places. Plan to do less and you will feel less pressured.
2⃣ Teach through typing

I thought letting students literally type along was silly.

Well, I thought wrong. Having typed a code snippet themselves seemed to make students have a better feeling for the code. Later on during exercises, they were better at adjusting the code.
Read 9 tweets
Mar 30
From standard output to powerful storytelling.

Here's how you can recreate the storytelling with data look in #ggplot2.

A detailed thread 🧵⬇️
#rstats #dataviz
This thread is based on my newest blog post. Find it at albert-rapp.de/post/2022-03-2…

There, you will find more details and ressources than I can offer in this thread.

The blog post was inspired by a makeover video by storytelling with data. You can find it at
This is our original dataviz. We will improve it to tell a compelling story.
Read 17 tweets

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