Contribution Guide
If you're a member of SDCR and would like to contribute to the project, please make sure you understand the basics of the Github Fork and Pull workflow, as well as how Jekyll sites are set up.
HTML, CSS, JavaScript
If you're not familiar with web development, generally, please check out https://www.freecodecamp.org/ and similar resources before moving on to the rest of the guide. You don't need to be an expert in any of these, but you do need to have a basic understanding.
Markdown
Content pages of the site (news entries, etc.) are generally built using Markdown, not HTML. You've probably used something similar to Markdown before, whether in old forums or on Reddit. Here's a quick guide: https://guides.github.com/features/mastering-markdown/
Git Process
To get a better understanding of Git and the process we'll be using, check out these guides:
- https://guides.github.com/ - general GitHub guides
- https://gist.github.com/Chaser324/ce0505fbed06b947d962 - a good rundown on the Fork and Pull workflow
We will be using the Fork and Pull workflow. While you should read the guides, the key points are:
- Fork the repo (click the Fork button)
- Clone your Fork onto your local computer, somewhere you can work on it. Assuming you have git, in your terminal/command window, navigate to the folder you'd like to use, then type:
git clone YOUR_FORK_URL FOLDER_NAME
- Check out a branch:
git -b checkout BRANCH_NAME
Do NOT work on master - you won't harm anything because you'll have to do a pull request to merge it with the live site, but it's best to get in the habit of making a new branch and working off that.
- Make your changes in an editor (I prefer VSCode, but there are tons of good ones out there)
- Add and commit your changes:
git add .
git commit -m "COMMENT OF WHAT YOU DID"
- Push your changes:
git push origin BRANCH_NAME
- Once you have pushed to your Fork, you'll go to GitHub and do a Pull Request so that your code can be reviewed and then merged into the main project
Jekyll
You'll need to install Ruby before installing Jekyll. Jekyll is a static site generator that works wonderfully with GitHub Pages. If you install it, you can make your own projects to really get a feel for it before diving into ours. You'll need to install it if you want to actually test your changes to our project as you make them. Once installed, use terminal to
navigate to the project folder (cloned above using Git), then type
jekyll serve
to launch your local server.