WICS Website

This repository holds the WICS website's source code!

Before Getting Started

You don't need much to work on the site, just a text editor and a few basic tools. Here is a guide to get you started.
If you run into issues with this guide, don't hesitate to reach out over Slack, we're happy to help out!

Installing an Editor

A decent all-round editor/IDE is IntelliJ. However, everyone has their own preference and you're welcome to use whatever you like.

Alternative IDEs:

• Atom
• VSCode

Setting up Git

See this article.

You don't need to worry about the "Authenticating with GitHub from Git" section, just complete 1-3.

Installing Ruby

To install Ruby, go here and follow the instructions.

Now with Ruby installed, you should be able to install bundler with the gem utility (Ruby's package manager) with the following command:

$ gem install bundler

Note: You might see a warning that looks like so:

WARNING:  You don't have /homedir/.gem/ruby/2.5.0/bin in your PATH,
          gem executables will not run.

If so: run this command, replacing the path with the exact path found in the warning message:

$ export PATH=$PATH:/homedir/.gem/ruby/2.5.0/bin

---

Contributing to the Site

Making Changes

Now that you have Git installed.

1. clone the repository

$ git clone https://github.com/umwics/wics-site

2. then change directory to it with this command:

$ cd wics-site

3. Next, create a new branch.

Note: You should name it something concise but relevant to what you're going to work on. Here I've used the name fix-broken-link to describe what my branch will contain.

$ git checkout -b fix-broken-link

Now feel free to make changes to the site! Now to preview changes to the site.

Testing the Site Locally

Now that you've made some changes, you probably want to see what they look like.

This article describes everything here and more, but some of it is not necessary and might just trip you up.

Note: If you're on Windows, you should run the commands listed here with Git Bash, which should have been installed along with Git. If you're on Linux or MacOS, use your terminal to run the commands.

You will need the Ruby programming language and bundler installed on your computer. (See the Before Getting Stated Section)

1. change directory to the WICS website repository. (Skip this step if you're already inside the repository.)

$ cd <repo> # replace <repo> with the path to the repository

2. Install the site's dependencies (this might take a while).

$ bundle install

We're ready now to run the website.

3. Run the following command:

bundle exec jekyll serve

• You should see a message that ends with these lines (or similar):

Server address: http://127.0.0.1:4000/~wics/
Server running... press ctrl-c to stop.

Now you can navigate to http://localhost:4000/~wics/ to view the website. (Don't forget the trailing slash!)

While the site is running in the terminal, you can edit pages and they will update in real time.

Submitting Changes

Now that you've written a great new feature, the next step is to commit those changes, and push them to the GitHub repository. Afterwards, you will make a pull request for us to review and merge.

1. Stage your files:

$ git add .

2. Commit your changes.

$ git commit -m 'Fix broken link to CSS tutorial'

Note: Your commit message should concisely describe what you did.

3. Push the commit to the GitHub repository.

$ git push origin fix-broken-link  # Remember to use the same name as your own branch!

4. Here, Git will ask you for your username and password. Enter your GitHub username and password here.

5. Create a pull request. To do so, follow the instructions found here!

With all this done, you may receive some feedback or requests for changes, or it may be merged straight into the live website.

Learning Resoures

Here are some tutorials for getting you on your feet with various tools and technologies:

• Git
• HTML
• CSS
• Bootstrap

Optional:

• Jekyll
• YAML
• Markdown