You’ve probably heard the name GitHub tossed around in various corners of the internet. With the rise in access to free programming resources across the web, you likely know what GitHub is and may have an account. But beyond the base service that GitHub offers is an array of functionality that can improve your experience on the site and the experience of others that come to your repository. If you want to improve your experience while coding,check out these Chromebooks.
What is GitHub?
At the most basic level, GitHub is an online service for managing different versions of files using an open source program called Git (developed by the creator of the Linux kernel, Linus Torvalds). Git is a software development tool that was created so that numerous programmers could work on different parts of the same project while allowing their changes to be tracked and compartmentalized until they could be properly vetted.
Due to it being a repository for source code, GitHub has also morphed into a social media network for programmers. You can follow other users or their open source projects to keep abreast of any updates or changes they make, and you can customize your landing pages to be more appealing to visitors who find their way to your projects.
Use GitHub as a web host
If you’re a programmer or a creative professional, it’s becoming more important to have an online portfolio of your work that’s easy to access and share. Traditionally, that meant having a personalized website which could cost up to $100 per year between hosting and domain fees, but GitHub Pages lets you do it for free.
How to make a website for your GitHub account
GitHub has a simple guideto get your page set up if you want to get into the details, but if you’ve worked with HTML and GitHub before, it’s a simple process.
It really is that easy. The name you gave to the GitHub repository (in our example AndroidPolice.github.io) is now the URL for your new website. You can only have one web page per user account. On the other hand, you can have one site per repo and unlimited repos.
How to make a website for your GitHub repo
The process for making a page for your repo is a bit different from making one for your account.
By default, web pages for your repos display an index.html file if you have one. If not, it falls back to README.md. The URL for your repo page will beusername.github.io/repo-name.
Even though GitHub was made for programmers first, there are no restrictions on what types of files you may upload, so don’t hold yourself back from making a repository just because you’re not a coder.
Use GitHub to make a wiki
This one is really easy, but it’s not something that’s often talked about. You can have one wiki for every repo you create. It’s a place to lay out the documentation for your project, but in reality, you can use it for anything you want.
Learn markdown to make your repo stand out
For many people, GitHub is a means to find new projects they can use or contribute to. To that end, they don’t spend time looking at websites or wikis. Rather, they’re looking at your public repository, which means your README.md file is the first thing they see. If you want people to engage with your projects, you must make it easy for them to understand them, which means you’ll need to make it look nice with a little bit of formatting.
Use the tag
If your project has keyboard shortcuts, documentation is the best way to let your users know. Thetag removes any ambiguity that you’re talking about pressing a key and didn’t just make a typo. To use it, just put the shortcut key betweenand.
Use to create collapsible content
Thetag is the perfect tool for when you have information you want to be seen, but it’s not so important that it clutters up your repo page. If you’re familiar with howworks in HTML, you’ll be happy to know it works the same way here.
Organize your information with tables
Sometimes when you have a lot of information, the best way to share it is with a table. However, unlike theandtags, which were borrowed from HTML, tables in GitHub markdown must be formatted in a particular way. You could go through the GitHub documentation learning the intricacies of making tables in markdown, or you could use thisawesome open source tool for creating and converting tables, table-magic.
Link to a line in a file
If you use GitHub as a repository for your programming projects, you’ll likely want to link directly to the source code at some point in your project. That’s all good, but files can often be hundreds if not thousands of lines long, making it a chore to scroll through it until a particular line can be found. Thankfully, with GitHub, you may link directly to a line or lines of a file.
You can create a link to a range of lines by clicking on the first line in your range, then holding downShiftand selecting the last line.
Using a direct link to a line of code can be useful for a real-world example of code on your JavaScript tutorial on Medium and to give more context to your pull requests. Be aware that links generated this way link to the same line even if you update your source code.
Become a pro at using the command line interface
If you delve deep enough into the programming rabbit hole, you’ll eventually engage with the most rudimentary interface available, the command line interface, or CLI. The days of DOS supremacy are long gone, but power users know that the CLI still has a lot to offer, especially if you use Git.
Save time with aliases
you may create a shortened version of the Git commands you often use to save time on the keyboard. For instance, you could change thecommitcommand toctby typinggit config –global alias.ct commit. This same formula applies to any command you like.
Use flags to improve blame
Git blame is a command used to see who is responsible for which changes in a file. Although, not all changes carry as much weight as others. you’re able to add flags to blame to ignore certain changes.
Go forth and code
Wrapping your head around everything GitHub has to offer is no small task, but you can incorporate some of these GitHub tips into your workflow. And, if you have no idea what we’re talking about,check out our introduction to Github.com.
