To develop the site, you'll need to first clone the repository on to your computer. For new Git users, see the Using Git section below.
Set up
Before you start working on an issue
After you've worked on your issue and before you make a pull request:
7a. No changes in the upstream repo
Or
7b. Conflicting changes in the upstream repo and how to resolve them
Okay. You're good to go!
In the hfla-site slack channel, send your GitHub name to the project manager (or on the slack channel thread) and we'll add you as a member to the GitHub repository Team.
Once you have accepted the GitHub invite (comes via email or in your GitHub notifications), please do the following:
-
Mark your own membership public https://help.github.com/en/articles/publicizing-or-hiding-organization-membership#changing-the-visibility-of-your-organization-membership
-
Setup two factor authentication on your account hackforla/admin-governance#20
This section discusses some tips and best practices for working with Git.
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Generally changes start on your local clone of your fork of this repository, in your own branch.
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Commit your changes with a comment related to the issue it addresses to your local repository.
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Push that commit(s) to your online GitHub fork.
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From the
hackforlarepository, create a Pull Request which askshackforlato pull changes from your fork into the main repository. -
After the owner of the
hackforlarepository approves and merges your Pull Request, your changes will be live on the website.
In https://github.com/hackforla/website, look for the fork icon in the top right. Click it and create a fork of the repository.
For git beginners, a fork is a copy of the repository that will be placed on your GitHub account url.
It should create a copy here: https://github.com/your_GitHub_user_name/website, where your_GitHub_user_name is replaced with exactly that.
Note that this copy is on a remote server on the GitHub website and not on your computer yet.
If you click the icon again, it will not create a new fork but instead give you the URL associated with your fork.
For git beginners, this process will create a third copy of the repository on your local desktop.
First create a new folder on your desktop that will contain hackforla projects.
In your shell, navigate there then run the following commands:
git clone https://github.com/your_GitHub_user_name/website.gitYou should now have a new folder in your hackforla folder called website. Verify this by changing into the new directory:
cd websiteNext, verify that your local cloned repository is pointing to the correct origin URL (that is, the forked repo on your own Github account):
git remote -vYou should see fetch and push URLs with links to your forked repository under your account (i.e. https://github.com/YOURUSERNAME/website.git). You are all set to make working changes to the website on your local machine.
However, we still need a way to keep our local repo up to date with the deployed website. To do so, you must add an upstream remote to incorporate changes made while you are working on your local repo. Run the following to add an upstream remote URL & update your local repo with recent changes to the hackforla version:
git remote add upstream https://github.com/hackforla/website.git
git fetch upstreamAfter adding the upstream remote, you should now see it if you again run git remote -v :
origin https://github.com/YOURUSERNAME/website.git (fetch)
origin https://github.com/YOURUSERNAME/website.git (push)
upstream https://github.com/hackforla/website.git (fetch)
upstream https://github.com/hackforla/website.git (push)
If you accidentally cloned using the repository URL from the HackForLA Github (instead of the fork on your Github), then you can correct that with the following two commands:
- Set your forked repo on your Github as an
originremote:
git remote set-url origin https://github.com/your_user_name/website.git- Add another remote called
upstreamthat points to thehackforlaversion of the repository. This will allow you to incorporate changes later:
git remote add upstream https://github.com/hackforla/website.gitDocker is the recommended approach to quickly getting started with local development. (ELI5: Docker helps create a local/offline version of the hackforla.org website on your computer so you can test out your code before submitting a pull request).
There are two pre-requisites: Docker and Docker Compose. The recommended installation method is Docker Desktop for Windows 10 64-bit, Mac, and Linux users.
More on using Docker and the concepts of containerization:
Ensure you run the docker commands below from a shell inside the local directory containing your clone of this repository.
If you are on Windows and get 'You are not allowed to use Docker, you must be in the "docker-users" group' as an error message, the following wiki page is a guide for solving te issue:
This command starts a jekyll server locally. The server watches for changes to the source files and rebuilds and refreshes the site automatically in your browser.
docker-compose upNow browse to http://localhost:4000
To stop and completely remove the jekyll server (i.e. the running Docker container):
(do this anytime Docker or jekyll configuration or other repository settings change)
docker-compose downTo stop the server, but not destroy it (often sufficient for day-to-day work):
docker-compose stopBring the same server back up later with:
docker-compose upStep 5: Read Hack for LA's Site Architecture to get acquainted with how the website is structured
Create a new branch for each issue you work on. Doing all your work on topic branches leaves your repository's main branch (named gh-pages) unmodified and greatly simplifies keeping your fork in sync with the main project.
a) Check current branch
The git branch command will let you know what branch you are in, and what branch names are already in use.
git branchYou will see a list of all of your branches. There will be a star (*) next to the branch that you are currently in. By default you should start on the gh-pages branch.
Note: when you work on future issues, you must always be in the gh-pages branch when creating a new branch.
If you are not currently in the gh-pages branch, run the following command to return to it:
git checkout gh-pagesb) Create a new branch where you will work on your issue
The git checkout command will create and change to a new branch where you will do the work on your issue. In git, the checkout command lets you navigate between different branches. Using the -b flag you can create a new branch and immediately switch into it.
To create a new issue branch, and switch into it:
git checkout -b fix-logo-width-311The text after the -b, in the example fix-logo-width-311, will be the name of your new branch. Choose a branch name that relates to the issue you're working on. (No spaces!)
The format should look like the scheme above where the words are a brief description of the issue that will make sense at a glance to someone unfamiliar with the issue.
No law of physics will break if you don't adhere to this scheme, but laws of git will break if you add spaces.
When you've finished working on your issue, follow the steps below to prepare your changes to push to your repository.
c) Prepare your changes to push to your repository
Once you are done with the work on your issue you will push it to your repository. Before you can push your work to your repository, you will stage and commit your changes. These two commands are similar to the save command that you have used to in other programs.
- If you are using Visual studios code you can use the Git graphical user interface to stage your changes. For instructions check out the [Git gui wiki] (https://github.com/hackforla/website/wiki/Using-Git-GUI-(Graphical-user-Interface)-in-Visual-Studios-Code) Alternatively you can follow the intstructions below to stage changes through the terminal.
-Use the git add command to stage your changes.
This command prepares your changes before you commit them. You can stage files one at a time using the filename.
Run the command:
git add “filename.ext”-Use the git status command to see what files are staged.
This command will list the files that have been staged. These are the files that will be committed (saved) when you run the next command, git commit. Please be sure all your staged changes are relevant to the issue you are working on. If you find you have included unrelated changes, please unstage them before making this commit - and then make a new commit for the unrelated changes. (The commands for unstaging commits are provided in the output of your git status command.)
git status-Use the git reset HEAD command to remove a staged file.
This command will remove a file that has been staged. This file will not be committed (saved) when you run the next command, git commit. This only works if the wrong files were added, but they were not yet committed. The file will be removed from the staging area, but not actually deleted:
git reset HEAD “filename.ext” -Use the git commit command
This command saves your work, and prepares it to push to your repository. Use the -m flag to quickly add a message to your commit. Your message should be a short description of the issue you are working. It will be extremely helpful if other people can understand your message, so try to reisst the temptation to be overly cryptic.
To commit your changes with a message, run:
git commit -m “insert message here”Congratulations! You are now ready to push your work to your repository.
Before you push your local commits to your repository, check to see if there have been updates made in the main Hack For LA website repository. git fetch will check remote repositories for changes without altering your local repository.
git fetch upstreamIf you do not see any output, there have not been any changes in the main Hack for LA website repository since the last time you checked. So it is safe to push your local commits to your fork.
If you just type git push you will be prompted to create a new branch in your GitHub repository. The more complete command below will create a new branch on your copy of the website repository, and then push your local branch there. The name at the end of this command should be the same as the name of the local branch that you created back in step 6, as in the example below:
git push --set-upstream origin fix-logo-width-311When you check the upstream repository, you may see output like this:
Fetching upstream
remote: Enumerating objects: 11, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (11/11), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (7/7), done.
remote: Total 11 (delta 5), reused 7 (delta 4), pack-reused 0
Unpacking objects: 100% (11/11), 8.25 KiB | 402.00 KiB/s, done.
From https://github.com/hackforla/website
+ 770d667...14f9f46 Bonnie -> hackforla/Bonnie (forced update)
* [new branch] bonnie -> hackforla/bonnie
5773ebe..0c86ecd gh-pages -> hackforla/gh-pagesYou can safely ignore changes in other issue branches, such as
bonnie above. But if you see changes in gh-pages, as in
5773ebe..0c86ecd gh-pages -> hackforla/gh-pages, you should
incorporate those changes into your repository before merging or
rebasing your issue branch. Use the instructions below
to bring your fork up to date with the main repository.
Your fork of this repository on GitHub, and your local clone of that fork, will get out of sync with this (upstream) repository from time to time. (That's what has happend when you see something like "This branch is 1 commit behind hackforla:gh-pages" on the github website version of your hackforla repository.)
One way to keep your fork up to date with this repository is to follow these instruction: Syncing your fork to the original repository via the browser
You can also update your fork via the local clone of your fork, using
these instructions. Assuming you have a local clone with remotes
upstream (this repo) and origin (your GitHub fork of this repo):
First, you will need to create a local branch which tracks upstream/gh-pages. You will only need to do this once; you do not need to do this every time you want to incorporate upstream changes.
Run the following two commands:
git fetch upstream
git checkout -b upstream-gh-pages --track upstream/gh-pagesIf you have already created the branch upstream-gh-pages, the following commands will incorporate upstream changes:
git checkout upstream-gh-pages # Move to the branch you want to merge with.
git pull # This updates your tracking branch to match the gh-pages branch in this repository
git checkout gh-pages # Move back to your gh-pages branch
git merge upstream-gh-pages # Merge to bring your gh-pages current. If you do all your work on topic branches (as suggested above) and keep gh-pages free of local modifications, this merge should apply cleanly.
Then push the merge changes to your GitHub fork:
git pushIf you go to your online github repository this should remove the message "This branch is x commit behind hackforla:gh-pages".
To incorporate these updates from the main GitHub repository into your topic branch, you can 'rebase' your branch onto your updated gh-pages branch. NOTE you should only rebase if you have never pushed your topic branch to GitHub (or shared it with another collaborator).
git checkout fix-logo-width-311
git rebase gh-pagesIf you receive warnings about conflicts, abort the rebase with git rebase --abort and instead merge gh-pages into your branch.
git checkout fix-logo-width-311
git merge gh-pagesIf you have not submitted a pull request make sure to write a weekly status update on your issue before the Sunday meeting. Follow the format below and add pictures of any visual changes made to the site.
- Progress: "What is the current status of your project? What have you completed and what is left to do?"
- Blockers: "Difficulties or errors encountered."
- Availability: "How much time will you have this week to work on this issue?"
- ETA: "When do you expect this issue to be completed?"
- Pictures: "Add any pictures of the visual changes made to the site so far."
git push --set-upstream origin fix-logo-width-311Now create a new pull request to ask for your updates to be
incorporated into the live web site. Go to
https://github.com/hackforla/website/pulls and click on "New pull
request". Please rename your pull request something descriptive i.e. "building a project card for civic opportunity project".
Also, since your changes are not in the hackforla/website
repository, you need to click the "compare across forks" link in the
first paragraph to make your repository and your new branch
available. Make sure to include pictures of any visual changes made to the site and document your edits on the pull request so that the reviewer can understand the changes made. Review the changes that will be included in the pull
request and, if it fixes a specific issue, include Fixes #140 in the
pull request message so the issue will be closed automatically once
your pull request is accepted and merged.
Once you have finished working on the issue you have chosen, commit
the changes to your local branch (e.g. fix-logo-width-311).
Important: After you completed your assignment and committed all of the changes, before moving onto your next issue and creating a new branch, you must leave your current branch and return to the gh-pages branch. From there you can checkout into a new branch. (This ensures you don’t accidentally include the changes from your previous branch in your new branch).
Run the following command to return to the gh-pages branch:
git checkout gh-pagesFrom here, once your pull request is approved and merged you can pull the recent merge from the Hack For LA repository and delete your local branch:
git pull upstream gh-pages
git branch -d <your-feature-branch>Managing branches this way will keep the commit logs cleaner on the Hack For LA repository, versus merging your completed feature branches into your local repo.
Now you are all set to work on a new PR. Start over on Step 6.
If you find an error in your code or your reviewer asks you to make a change, please avoid editing your code directly from the pull request. Instead update it in your local branch first and then push it to your origin remote. This will update the original pull request.