====
Home
====

The homepage consists of three main sections: a banner, a news pane, and a research pane. The main source code can be found in `_layouts/index.html` which is a top-level `html` file defining the homepage layout.

This page was designed to require minimal editing or maintenance. The news pane will automatically list the three most recent news items in `_news_items` (more information on how to add news items below), and the research pane will pull research projects from `_projects` which have `featured: true` in their front matter.

^^^^^^^^^^^^
News Items
^^^^^^^^^^^^
You can add a news item to the site by adding a new markdown file in `_news_items`. 
The front matter of these files is used to sort them by date, and to place an appropriate icon when they are displayed on the homepage. The necessary fields are described below:

.. glossary::

    title : String
        A unique title for the news item.

    date : Date
    	A date in YYYY-MM-DD format for when the annoucement was first made. Used to sort items by recency.

    type: Enum
    	An announcement type; this can take two specific values, `defense`, which announces a student's successful PhD defense, `award`, which announces an award won by someone in the lab. This argument is optional, and merely changes the icon displayed with the item on the homepage.