updated README with build instructions

README.md

@@ -2,7 +2,9 @@
 
 This is a Jekyll-powered website for the VSP transport planning department at TU-Berlin.
 
-It is in **TWO LANGUAGES now** so if you want pages to be available in both English and German, you need to add or edit two pages:
+## Editing pages - multilanguage
+
+It is in **TWO LANGUAGES now** so if you want pages to be available in both English and German, you must add/edit two pages:
 
 **Home page:** is at `/index.md` and `/_pages_en/index.md`
 
@@ -12,16 +14,43 @@ It is in **TWO LANGUAGES now** so if you want pages to be available in both Engl
 
 The system will do its best to pick the right version of a page based on whether it exists in both languages and which version of the site you are visiting.
 
+## Building the site locally
 
-## Building site locally
-
-You need Ruby 3.3.0 installed, so that the dependency bundler can install all the things:
+Jekyll requires Ruby 3.3.x installed so that the dependency bundler can find all the things:
 
-- Install Ruby 3.3.0 for your system
-  - On Mac homebrew this is `brew install [email protected]`
-  - Or `rbenv install 3.3.0` and `rbenv global 3.3.0`
-- `bundle install`. If this step has build errors, try deleted `Gemfile.lock` and trying again.
+- Install Ruby 3.3 for your system: on Mac homebrew this is `brew install [email protected]`
+- Make sure the correct Ruby is in your PATH; I had to add to my .profile:
+  - `export PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/ruby/bin:$PATH"
+  - run "which ruby" to verify you are running Ruby 3.3
+- Finally run `bundle install`. This installs all of the jekyll infrastructure. If this step has build errors, try deleting `Gemfile.lock` and trying again.
 
 Now you can run locally:
 
-- `bundle exec jekyll serve`
+- `bundle exec jekyll serve` and you have a hot server, edit your files, go visit http://127.0.01:4000/ and reload to see your changes
+
+## Publications page web-app
+
+The Publications page is now a separate javascript app built with more interactivity than Jekyll can provide. It's built using Vue, the same platform we use for sounding board, simwrapper, everything....
+
+Source code for this is in the `_publications_app` folder.  It gets built separately there, and then the built outputs are copied into the `publications` folder.
+
+To build update the publications-app:
+
+- Install Node 20.x from https://node.dev
+- cd into `_publications_app`
+- run `npm ci` to install node project dependencies
+- now you can run `npm run dev` to get a hot-reload dev server.
+
+Make your changes and when things are working properly and want to merge it into the main site:
+
+- `npm run build`
+- `cp dist/assets/index*.js ../publications`
+
+Now go back and run the Jekyll server as above and review your changes.
+
+The CSS styling between the two often gets lost: I find that copying manually any new CSS from `_publications_app/src/App.vue` into `_sass/main.css` works best.
+
+Have fun!
+
+..Billy
+