GitHub

GitHub is a code hosting platform for version control and collaboration. It lets you and others work together on projects from anywhere.

Contributing requires you to have made a GitHub account and been accepted into the CSArtisan GitHub Team. If you aren’t on the team and need to be, please request access by contacting the development team, preferably with your school email. See Signing up for GitHub

CSArtisan uses GitHub to manage versions, manage edit permissions, and host the website. You will use GitHub as a place to submit added articles and have them reviewed by an editor.

To continue, you need to make a GitHub account. You can do this by going to github.com and selecting and fulfilling the sign-up process. It is not necessary to select any pricing plan other than Free.

Signing up for GitHub

Signing up for GitHub is fairly straightforward.

First, go to https://github.com and press Sign Up in the upper-right corner. This will take you to a page with animated stars, and a text box.

If the text box isn’t loading anything and you cannot type, your browser may not be powerful enough to support the sign-up page. This happens commonly with Firefox.

If your browser isn’t the issue, it may have to do with the power of your computer. If you believe this is the case, try making an account with another device and simply logging in on your target device.

Joining the GitHub Team

To make any contributions to the website you must first be in the GitHub Team. After you have made your account, message the Club IT (Call/Text: 6267108965) with your username or email to be added to the team promptly.

After IT has received your request, you will be sent an invitation to join the team. You can accept this invitation by going to github.com/csartisan then pressing the View Invitation button upper-right and fulfilling its steps.

After joining, your profile picture should appear under the “People” section in the right sidebar.

Setting up GitHub Desktop

Once your account is created, we must download GitHub Desktop.

GitHub Desktop is a computer application that allows you to edit a GitHub repository as local files. It is important to be careful when using GitHub Desktop, as it is possible to lose contribution progress if you miss a step.

Installation

You can install GitHub Desktop on any supported operating system.

To install GitHub Desktop, navigate to https://desktop.github.com/ and download the appropriate version of GitHub Desktop for your operating system. Follow the prompts to complete the installation. For troubleshooting, see Installing GitHub Desktop.

When it has finished installing, open it and authenticate your GitHub account.

Installing Git (Optional)

Git is a command line tool that is used GitHub Desktop. If you do not already have Git installed, you can download and install the latest version of Git from https://git-scm.com/downloads.

Cloning the website

In GitHub, cloning refers to downloading a local copy of a repository. With this clone you will upload your fully formatted posts and “push” them- or sync them, using GitHub Desktop.

macOS

  1. Open Github Desktop
  2. Click “Current Repository” dropdown button in top-left corner,
  3. Click “Add” dropdown button,
  4. Select “Clone Repository…”,
  5. Select “URL” from top navigation bar,
  6. Paste https://github.com/csartisan/csartisan.github.io/ in the input space.
    • If this gives a red error that says “This folder already contains files…”, the repository has already been cloned onto your device and you can continue.

Windows

  1. Open Github Desktop
  2. Click “Current Repository” dropdown button in top-left corner,
  3. Select “Clone a repository from the internet…”,
  4. Select “URL” from top navigation bar,
  5. Paste https://github.com/csartisan/csartisan.github.io/ in the input space.
    • If this gives a red error that says “This folder already contains files…”, the repository has already been cloned onto your device and you can continue.

Congratulations! You have created a local version of the website on your device.

How to find your local repository

Accessing the files is easy. In a file explorer such as Finder, go to the following file path that corresponds to your operating system. Where [USERNAME] is the username of your current profile.

macOS Windows
~/Documents/GitHub/csartisan.github.io/ C:\Users\[USERNAME]\Documents\GitHub\csartisan.github.io

These paths are the default. The rest of the guide uses these paths, so move them at your own risk.

If there was an error in this bug that you cannot troubleshoot yourself, please visit the Issues page for these Docs.

Making changes to these folders won’t change the website just yet, but it is recommended not to change anything right now.

Continue to Markdown