Shortly after the 2.0 release Octopress added the `source/_includes/custom` directory. If you don't have this, you'll want to [update](/docs/updating) because it's really nice.
By default Octopress generates your blog's post index at your site's root directory.
If you'd rather publish your blog index somewhere else like `blog/index.html` do this in your terminal.
``` sh
mv source/index.html source/blog/index.html
rake new_page[index.html]
```
Next you'll want to update your `Rakefile` to be sure your new blog index is preserved when you [update Octopress](/docs/updating).
``` ruby
blog_index_dir = 'source/blog'
```
Remember to update the main navigation for your site, since currently the blog link points to `/`. Skip down to the section on [changing navigation](#changing_navigation), add a 'home' link and update the 'blog' link to point to `/blog/`.
Finally, `source/index.html` can become the landing page of your wildest dreams.
If you want to add a section to your sidebar, create a new file in `source/_includes/custom/asides/`.
Since many people probably want to add an About Me section, there's already an `about.html` file in there waiting to be added. Here's a look.
{% codeblock About Me (source/_includes/custom/asides/about.html) %}
{% render_partial ../.themes/classic/source/_includes/custom/asides/about.html raw %}
{% endcodeblock %}
Whenever you add a section to the sidebar, follow this pattern, with a `<section>` block and an `<h1>` for a title. To add it to the sidebar, edit the `_config.yml` and add it to the list of asides.
In the configuration above I've added the about page to the blog index and post pages. Since `page_asides` isn't being set, it will inherit from the default list.
These are sections of the site that are most likely to be customized. You can edit each in `/source/_includes/custom/` and your changes will be preserved across updates.
The header title and subtitle should be configured in the `_config.yml` If you want to make other changes to the header, edit `/source/_includes/custom/header.html` which looks like this:
{% render_partial ../.themes/classic/source/_includes/custom/navigation.html raw %}
{% endcodeblock %}
The `href` for each link begins with `{% raw %}{{ root_url }}{% endraw %}` (this helps Octopress write urls differently if a site is deployed to a subdirectory).
If you're deploying your site to a subdirectory like `yoursite.com/octopress` you'll want to add this to any links you add.
### Changing the Footer
You can customize the footer in `source/_includes/custom/footer.html` which looks like this:
