github-course-starter

What’s Here

• .gitignore: Files ignored by Git, such as the _site/ directory generated by jekyll --server --auto.
• _config.yml: Configuration file for Jekyll and the course site. Start by entering your information here.
• _includes/: Small pieces of HTML that get added to layouts
  • course_header.html: Include for the top of your course site pages
  • credits_and_licence.html: Include for the footer, with copyright, credits, license, etc.
  • instructor_info.html: Include for instructor information; outputs info from _config.yml
• _layouts/: Layouts for generating site pages
  • default.html: Default layout for site pages
• _starter.md: Basic page content file; customize the top portion and reuse for each new page.
• .gitignore: File that tells Git to ignore certain files, to keep your repository clean.
• assets/: Stylesheets, images, and other site assets
  • css/: Stylesheets
    • bootstrap-responsive.min.css: Minified Twitter Bootstrap stylesheet with responsive styles
    • bootstrap.min.css: Core Twitter Bootstrap styles
    • print.css: Print styles (custom); imports the two Bootstrap files
    • screen.css: Screen styles (custom)
  • img/: Images for your site
    • glyphicons-halflings-white.png: White Glyphicons packaged with Twitter Bootstrap
    • glyphicons-halflings.png: Black Glyphicons packaged with Twitter Bootstrap
  • js/: JavaScript files
    • bootstrap.min.js: Twitter Bootstrap JavaScript file (depends on jQuery, which is loaded from the Google Code API in the default.html layout file
    • html5shiv.js: HTML5 Shiv, a JavaScript file that enables older Internet Explorer browsers (prior to v. 9) to style HTML5 elements used in the default.html layout file
• index.md: Content file for home page; treated as Course Calendar, but can be anything you like
• README.md: You’re looking at it.

Setup

Mac:

• Install TextWrangler (available on the Mac app store, or here)
• Install the TextWrangler command-line tools
• Install the Rails Installer for OS X (Stolley will have a thumb drive you can just grab it from at the WIDE-EMU workshop).
• If you don’t have a GitHub account, sign up for one.
• Create SSH keys, if you don’t have them yet, and add them to GitHub. If running $ cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub in your terminal doesn’t result in output, follow these instructions, specifically Steps 3, 4, and 5.
• Fork this repository

Windows

• Install Notepad++; just extract the .zip file to your Desktop, and run the notepad++.exe file.
• Install the Rails Installer for Windows (Stolley will have a thumb drive you can just grab it from at the WIDE-EMU workshop).
• If you don’t have a GitHub account, sign up for one.
• Create SSH keys and add them to your GitHub account, following these instructions, specifically Steps 3, 4, and 5.
• Fork this repository

Workshop Steps

• Open up your Terminal (Mac) or Command Prompt (Win) and create a directory for your course websites: $ mkdir Courses
• Change into that directory: $ cd Courses
• Clone your forked repository by running $ git clone followed by the SSH link from your forked copy of this repository
• Do lots of things to make your site; run $ git add FILENAMES replacing FILENAMES with a space-separated list of files and directories to add, followed by $ git commit -m "Descriptive message..." replacing Descriptive message... with a message describing the change to the files you added.
• Create a new GitHub repo for your actual site; the name will determine the URL
• Remove the original remote of your forked repo $ git remote rm origin
• Add a new remote to your forked repo by running $ git remote add origin YOURURL replacing YOURURL with the SSH URL from your newly created remote
• Push your course site to make it live $ git push origin gh-pages
• Make more changes; commit them; then run git push origin gh-pages to make them live

Using a custom domain

• Instead of using a domain name like http://username.github.com/repo-name/, you can use a custom domain or subdomain. Use your domain registrar’s control panel to set up either a CNAME or A Record, as described here
• Then, create a text file called CNAME containing the domain or subdomain you set up with your domain registrar. For example, if you set up a CNAME record for http://course.example.com/``, the contents of your CNAME file will be course.example.com Add the file to your repository ($ git add CNAME&$ git commit -m "Added CNAME file for my custom domain"`) Give it time; it can take several hours for nameservers to correctly route your domain/subdomain to GitHub.

Desperate cries for help

• Contact Karl via email at karl.stolley@gmail.com or on Twitter at @karlstolley