Contribution Guide

Please feel free to ask us for help in the Discord or in person! And if you think this guide can be improved, please tell us -- or make the changes yourself in a pull request by clicking the pencil icon a little above this paragraph and to the right.

Step 1: Set up Git

Installing Git

Click on your operating system to see installation instructions:

Make a GitHub account

If you don't have a GitHub account, make one! I suggest using your personal email, since you'll likely be using this account after leaving Oberlin.

Connect git to your GitHub account

Run the following command and follow the instructions it gives you:

gh auth login

Hide your email on GitHub

Every time you make a change with git, behind the scenes, it writes down your name, the date/time, and your email. When you share your commits with a public repository, that information is shared also. But you probably don't want to be sharing your email with the world! So GitHub can provide you with a fake email address to use when you sign your changes.

This email does not become your GitHub account email. It is used for this one purpose only, and you should never have to type it in after these steps.

This part is optional but recommended.

1. Go to https://github.com/settings/emails#toggle_visibility.
2. Check the checkboxes "Keep my email addresses private" and "Block command line pushes that expose my email".
3. Under the first checkbox, you should see an email address that looks something like this: 39969985+wknowleskellett@users.noreply.github.com. Copy it for the next step.

Configuring Git

Run the following command to set your Git email (replacing the part in quotes with the email you just copied).

git config --global user.email "39969985+wknowleskellett@users.noreply.github.com"

Git also needs a name to put in your commits. (Note that like the email, this will be shared publicly.)

git config --global user.name "John Doe"

Optional: Git’s default editor is vim. If you don’t feel like learning a complicated (but powerful!) editor, nano is another terminal-based editor that’s easier to get started with.

git config --global core.editor nano

Step 2: Set up Node.js

Node.js is a way to run JavaScript from outside of a Web browser. You'll need it in order to preview the website with your changes. Install Node.js from here: https://nodejs.org/en/download.

NOTE: It is possible to skip this step if you're making a small change, but once you start making larger contributions, you'll want to be able to check that your changes actually worked.

To check whether you have Node set up right, open a terminal on your computer (e.g. Terminal for Mac; PowerShell or Git Bash for Windows). Type the command node -v. If it prints a version number (e.g. v18.17.1), it's working. If it prints something like command not found, it's not working.

Step 3: Fork the repository

A fork is your personal copy of someone else's repository on GitHub. You can make whatever changes you want without messing up anyone else's work. At the top of this page is a "fork" button. Click this button to make a personal copy of the obiesource website repository.

Step 4: Clone the repository locally

1. Navigate to your forked repository

   • If github doesn't automatically take you there, you can click your avatar in the top right corner > Your repositories > obiesource.github.io

2. Click Code. Click GitHub CLI. Copy the command and paste it into the terminal.

3. In the terminal, navigate to where you want to store the repository locally.

   If you're not as familiar with the terminal, here are some basic commands you can use to navigate around. (The command line is pretty useful sometimes, but at first it'll probably just feel annoying.)

   • pwd (print working directory) prints the full path of the directory (AKA folder) you're currently in.
   • ls (list) lists the files in the current directory.
     • Once you find the list of files, you can use cd to move into a directory, or a text editor to move into a text file within the director
     • If you want to use built-in editors like vim or emacs - vim file1 or emacs file2 - that is an option, but other editors like VSCode would also work (however this requires more work to install, ask for help!)
   • cd (change directory) moves between directories.
     • You can list files within the new directory with ls and and move through folders with cd. This is what you'll be spending 90% of your time in the terminal doing!

4. Paste the GitHub CLI command you copied.

5. Make a new branch in git:

   • enter the following command:

     git switch -c new-member

     This is a shorthand for git switch --create new-member, which itself is a shorthand for running git branch new-member and then git switch new-member.

     That command creates a new branch called new-member and switches to it.

     Troubleshooting: If you have an old version of git (like Clyde does), you might get an error message that 'switch' is not a git command. In that case, run git checkout -b new-member.

Step 4: Make changes

1. Navigate to the folder obiesource.github.io/src/members
2. Make a copy of _template.json
3. Rename the copy {your-name}.json
4. Edit the document with your own personal information using a text editor. (I recommend Visual Studio Code.) All fields other than "name" are optional (just delete them to remove them from the page).

Step 5: Test your changes

NOTE: This is the step that relies on you having Node.js installed from step 2.

1. In your terminal, navigate to the obiesource.github.io/ directory.

2. Run the following command to install the JavaScript dependencies that this project requires (e.g. React.js):

   npm install

3. Run the following command to start the development server:

   npm start

4. Your browser will probably open the page automatically. If it doesn't, navigate to the local URL listed in the output of npm start (probably something like http://localhost:3000 or http://127.0.0.1:8000/).

   Troubleshooting:

   • If the page is blank, you'll probably be able to see the error if you open up your browser's developer console. (Or there might be an error message in the terminal where you're running the server.) It's probably because your JSON syntax isn't quite right. Look out for mistakes in quotation marks and commas in src/members/{your-name}.json!
   • If you forget the "name" field, you'll see an error in the members list page itself.

5. Click on "Members" at the top.

6. You should see a link that includes your name. Click on it.

7. You should see a page with all your information on it!

   Troubleshooting: If you see an error message, try to fix the error in src/members/{your-name}.json.

Step 6: Push the repository

1. In your terminal, navigate to obiesource.github.io/
2. Run the following commands:

   git status
   # In the output of `git status`, you should see that you're in the branch new-member and
   # that src/members/{your-name}.json has been changed.
   # Let's add that file so we can commit it to the git repository.
   git add src/members/{your-name}.json
   # If you run `git status` again here, you should see that
   # src/members/{your-name}.json is ready to be committed.
   # So let's commit it:
   git commit -m "Adding myself to the members list"
   # Then push it up to the new-member branch in your fork of the website.
   git push
   # At this point, you'll probably get an error message from git.
   # since you don't yet have a branch called new-member in your fork.
   # Let's follow git's suggestion from the error message to confirm that
   # you want to associate this local new-member branch with your fork's new-member branch.
   # (By default, "origin" is the GitHub repository you cloned from. In this case,
   # that's your fork.)
   git push --set-upstream origin new-member

Step 7: Make a pull request

A pull request is a request to have the changes from your forked repository added to the origin repository.

1. Open your forked repository in github.
2. Above your files should be a message that says "This branch is 1 commit ahead of ObieSource/obiesource.github.io:main."
3. Click Contribute > Open pull request > Create pull request
4. Now just wait! We'll review the additions and either give you feedback or accept the request!