Add enhanced markdown support and quality of life improvements

- Add Jekyll plugins: SEO tag, emoji, mentions, gists, redirects
- Configure enhanced markdown with GFM, footnotes, smart quotes
- Add reading time estimation to posts
- Improve syntax highlighting with line numbers
- Add SEO tag for better meta tag generation
- Create blog documentation with markdown features guide

🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.ai/code)

Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>

Author: morisy

BLOG_README.md

@@ -0,0 +1,85 @@
+# Instant History Blog
+
+This is Michael Morisy's personal blog built with Jekyll and hosted on GitHub Pages.
+
+## Quick Start
+
+### Writing a New Post
+
+1. Create a new file in the `_posts` folder
+2. Name it using the format: `YYYY-MM-DD-post-title.md`
+3. Add the following front matter at the top:
+
+```yaml
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Your Post Title"
+subtitle: "Optional subtitle"
+date: 2024-01-15 10:00:00
+tags: [tag1, tag2]
+---
+```
+
+4. Write your content using Markdown
+
+### Markdown Features
+
+This blog supports enhanced markdown features:
+
+- **GitHub Flavored Markdown**: Tables, strikethrough, task lists
+- **Code syntax highlighting**: Use triple backticks with language identifier
+- **Emojis**: Type `:emoji_name:` (e.g., `:smile:`)
+- **@mentions**: Link to GitHub users with `@username`
+- **Footnotes**: Use `[^1]` for footnote markers
+
+Example:
+```markdown
+This is some text with a footnote[^1].
+
+[^1]: This is the footnote content.
+```
+
+### Local Development
+
+1. Install Ruby and Bundler
+2. Run `bundle install` to install dependencies
+3. Run `bundle exec jekyll serve` to start local server
+4. Visit `http://localhost:4000`
+
+### Deployment
+
+The site automatically deploys to GitHub Pages when you push to the main branch.
+
+## Features
+
+- **SEO Optimization**: Automatic meta tags and Open Graph data
+- **Reading Time**: Shows estimated reading time for each post
+- **Sitemap**: Automatically generated at `/sitemap.xml`
+- **RSS Feed**: Available at `/feed.xml`
+- **Syntax Highlighting**: Beautiful code blocks with line numbers
+- **Social Sharing**: Twitter and Facebook share buttons
+- **Comments**: Configured for Staticman (requires setup)
+
+## Configuration
+
+Main settings are in `_config.yml`:
+- Site title and description
+- Author information
+- Social media links
+- Google Analytics
+- Comment system settings
+
+## Tips
+
+- Use `<!--more-->` in posts to set excerpt break point
+- Add `image: /path/to/image.jpg` in front matter for social media previews
+- Use `redirect_from: /old-url/` to redirect old URLs
+- Posts with future dates won't be published until that date
+
+## Troubleshooting
+
+If the site doesn't update after pushing:
+1. Check GitHub Actions tab for build errors
+2. Ensure post filenames are correctly formatted
+3. Verify front matter YAML is valid
+4. Check that post dates aren't in the future

_config.yml

@@ -6,6 +6,9 @@ title: Instant History
 # Short description of your site
 description: Michael Morisy's long-running (with many long rests) blog on media and technology.
 
+# Your name to show in the footer
+author: Michael Morisy
+
 # --- Local development options ---
 # If your website is hosted locally rather than on GitHub, then you need to uncomment the next two parameters to set the url and baseurl
 # *** If you're not sure what this mean, then leave this section as it is. Only modify the url and baseurl if you know what you're doing!***
@@ -172,6 +175,21 @@ paginate: 5
 
 kramdown:
   input: GFM
+  hard_wrap: false
+  auto_ids: true
+  footnote_nr: 1
+  entity_output: as_char
+  toc_levels: 1..6
+  smart_quotes: lsquo,rsquo,ldquo,rdquo
+  enable_coderay: false
+  syntax_highlighter: rouge
+  syntax_highlighter_opts:
+    css_class: 'highlight'
+    span:
+      line_numbers: false
+    block:
+      line_numbers: true
+      start_line: 1
 
 # Default YAML values (more information on Jekyll's site)
 defaults:
@@ -259,6 +277,12 @@ prose:
 plugins:
   - jekyll-paginate
   - jekyll-sitemap
+  - jekyll-feed
+  - jekyll-seo-tag
+  - jekyll-gist
+  - jekyll-mentions
+  - jekyll-redirect-from
+  - jemoji
 
 # Beautiful Jekyll / Dean Attali
 # 2fc73a3a967e97599c9763d05e564189

_includes/head.html

@@ -11,6 +11,8 @@
   <meta name="description" content="{{ page.subtitle }}">
   {% endif %}
 
+  {% seo %}
+
   <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="{{ site.title }} {{ site.title-separator }} {{ site.description }}" href="{{ '/feed.xml' | absolute_url }}" />
 
   {% include gtag.html %}

_includes/header.html

@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ <h2 class="{{ include.type }}-subheading">{{ page.subtitle }}</h2>
 		  {% endif %}
 
 		  {% if include.type == "post" %}
-		  <span class="post-meta">Posted on {{ page.date | date: site.date_format }}</span>
+		  <span class="post-meta">Posted on {{ page.date | date: site.date_format }} · {% include reading-time.html content=page.content %}</span>
 		  {% endif %}
         </div>
       </div>
@@ -61,7 +61,7 @@ <h2 class="{{ include.type }}-subheading">{{ page.subtitle }}</h2>
 		  {% endif %}
 
 		  {% if include.type == "post" %}
-		  <span class="post-meta">Posted on {{ page.date | date: site.date_format }}</span>
+		  <span class="post-meta">Posted on {{ page.date | date: site.date_format }} · {% include reading-time.html content=page.content %}</span>
 		  {% endif %}
         </div>
       </div>

_includes/reading-time.html

@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+{% assign words = content | number_of_words %}
+{% if words < 360 %}
+  <span class="reading-time">1 min read</span>
+{% else %}
+  <span class="reading-time">{{ words | divided_by: 180 }} min read</span>
+{% endif %}