Website

Hack for LA's website: https://www.hackforla.org

This is a standard Jekyll site hosted right here on GitHub pages.

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.

OVERVIEW

Set up

1. Join the Repo Team

2. Using Git and Fork the Repo

3. Clone to your local machine

4. Set up Docker

Before you start working on an issue

5. Read Hack for LA's Site Architecture to get acquainted with how the website is structured

6. Switch to new issue branch before you start making changes

After you've worked on your issue and before you make a pull request:

7. Check upstream before you push.

8. No changes in the upstream repo

Or

9. Conflicting changes in the upstream repo and how to resolve them

Okay. You're good to go!

10. Complete the pull request

---

Forking and cloning the repository with proper security

Step 1: Become a member of the repository Team

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:

1. Mark your own membership public https://help.github.com/en/articles/publicizing-or-hiding-organization-membership#changing-the-visibility-of-your-organization-membership

2. Setup two factor authentication on your account hackforla/admin-governance#20

Using Git

This section discusses some tips and best practices for working with Git.

Making changes, committing and pushing

1. Generally changes start on your local clone of your fork of this repository, in your own branch.

2. Commit your changes with a comment related to the issue it addresses to your local repository.

3. Push that commit(s) to your online GitHub fork.

4. From the hackforla repository, create a Pull Request which asks hackforla to pull changes from your fork into the main repository.

5. After the owner of the hackforla repository approves and merges your Pull Request, your changes will be live on the website.

Step 2: Fork the repository

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.

Step 3: Clone your online repository to your local computer

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.git

You should now have a new folder in your hackforla folder called website. Verify this by changing into the new directory:

cd website

Next, 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 -v

You 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 upstream

After 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:

1. Set your forked repo on your Github as an origin remote:

git remote set-url origin https://github.com/your_user_name/website.git

2. Add another remote called upstream that points to the hackforla version of the repository. This will allow you to incorporate changes later:

git remote add upstream https://github.com/hackforla/website.git

Step 4: Setting up Docker

Docker 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. Users of unsupported operating systems may check out Docker Toolbox instead.

More on using Docker and the concepts of containerization:

• Get started with Docker
• Get started with Docker Compose

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:

• Windows docker-users group error guide

Build and serve the website locally

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 up

Now browse to http://localhost:4000

Tear down

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 down

To stop the server, but not destroy it (often sufficient for day-to-day work):

docker-compose stop

Bring the same server back up later with:

docker-compose up

Step 5: Read Hack for LA's Site Architecture to get acquainted with how the website is structured

Step 6: Work on an issue using git

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 branch

You 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-pages

b) 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-311

The 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.

-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, or you can use the . to stage all of the files that you have added or made changes to.

Run the command:

git add .

-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 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.

Step 7: Check upstream before you push

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 upstream

Step 7a: No changes in the upstream repository

If 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-311

Step 7b: conflicting changes in the upstream repository

When 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-pages

You 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.

Incorporating changes from upstream

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-pages

If 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 gn-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 push

If you go to your online github repository this should remove the message "This branch is x commit behind hackforla:gh-pages".

Incorporating changes into your topic branch

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-pages

If 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-pages

Step 8: Complete the pull request

git push --set-upstream origin fix-logo-width-311

Now 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 repostory, you need to click the "compare across forks" link in the first paragraph to make you repository and your new branch available. 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-pages

Now you are all set to work on a new PR. Start over on Step 6.

Useful Links

Supported Platforms

• dockertoolbox
• ghpages
• jekyll
• jekyllcli

Tutorials

• Github Guides
• docker
• dockercompose
• dockerdesktop

Back to Top