The childes-db website is now generated using Jekyll, the static site generator typically used for Github Pages sites. The basic idea of a static site generator is that repetitive elements are specified once and included programatically; unlike typical dynamic web frameworks, these sites are rendered offline in a single batch process and only the static renders (output HTML pages) are served to clients. _layouts include templates with {{variables}}; _includes include repeated HTML or Markdown elements; _site includes the rendered site ; .html and .md elsewhere are converted into HTML and include a header to specify which template to use.
Typically GH Pages runs Jekyll on all GH pages whenever a commit is pushed on master. To use Jekyll locally to preview the site (strongly recommended), you must install Jekyll following the instructions here.
Install dependencies: bundle install
Test build: [bundle exec] jekyll build
Serve on localhost: [bundle exec] jekyll serve
jekyll serve reflects live updates for any component files (templates, includes, or content).