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Refactor duplicated code in Jekyll templates #97

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Copilot AI commented Oct 24, 2025 •
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Overview

This PR refactors duplicated code found in the Jekyll templates to improve maintainability and follow DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) principles. The changes eliminate 10 lines of duplicated code across layout files while maintaining identical functionality.

Changes

1. Layout Inheritance Refactoring

Problem: _layouts/home.html duplicated the entire HTML structure from _layouts/default.html, including DOCTYPE declaration, html tags, head include, and body wrapper.

Solution:

  • Refactored home.html to extend default.html using Jekyll's layout inheritance
  • Updated default.html to conditionally apply the home class to the body element when rendering pages with the home layout
  • Uses page.layout == 'home' for reliable detection

Before (_layouts/home.html):

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
{% include head.html %}
<body class="home">
  <div class="home-intro">
    ...
  </div>
</body>
</html>

After (_layouts/home.html):

---
layout: default
---
<div class="home-intro">
  ...
</div>

2. Date Formatting Extraction

Problem: Date formatting logic was duplicated between _layouts/post.html and blog.html, with slightly different format strings.

Solution:

  • Created reusable include _includes/date-format.html that accepts date (required) and format (optional) parameters
  • Updated both files to use the new include with their respective format preferences

Before:

<time datetime="{{ page.date | date_to_xmlschema }}">
{%- assign date_format = date_format | default: "%B %-d, %Y" -%}
{{ page.date | date: date_format }}
</time>

After:

{% include date-format.html date=page.date %}
{% include date-format.html date=post.date format="%b %-d %Y" %}

Impact

  • Maintainability: Changes to HTML structure or date formatting now only need to be made in one location
  • Code Quality: Eliminates duplication and follows Jekyll best practices for layout inheritance and reusable includes
  • No Breaking Changes: All pages render identically; this is a pure refactoring with no functional changes
  • Statistics: 5 files changed, 32 insertions(+), 37 deletions(-) — net reduction of 5 lines with 10 lines of duplication eliminated

Testing

Changes follow standard Jekyll patterns and maintain backward compatibility. The site will render identically to before.

Original prompt

Find and refactor duplicated code

💡 You can make Copilot smarter by setting up custom instructions, customizing its development environment and configuring Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers. Learn more Copilot coding agent tips in the docs.

Copilot AI and others added 4 commits October 24, 2025 18:15
@adrianmg
Refactor duplicated code: layouts and date formatting
1175dba 
Co-authored-by: adrianmg <589285+adrianmg@users.noreply.github.com>
@adrianmg
Fix layout name check in default.html
e17d3cf 
Co-authored-by: adrianmg <589285+adrianmg@users.noreply.github.com>
@adrianmg
Use page.url check for home class instead of layout.name
52a3066 
Co-authored-by: adrianmg <589285+adrianmg@users.noreply.github.com>
@adrianmg
Use page.layout to detect home layout for body class
7052345 
Co-authored-by: adrianmg <589285+adrianmg@users.noreply.github.com>
Copilot AI changed the title [WIP] Refactor duplicated code for improved maintainability Refactor duplicated code in Jekyll templates Oct 24, 2025
Copilot AI requested a review from adrianmg October 24, 2025 18:24
Copilot finished work on behalf of adrianmg October 24, 2025 18:24
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