Creating a Workshop Website

Creating a Repository from the Carpentries Template

Log into GitHub, and go to https://github.com/carpentries/workshop-template#creating-a-repository. Follow the steps under “Creating a Repository” so that your screen looks like this (with different Name). Fill in “Workshop website for {dates} {workshop type}” for the Description. Contact Mike Trizna if you do not have access to the “SmithsonianWorkshops” organization.
Test out the URL (of form https://smithsonianworkshops.github.io/[repo name]), and add it to the Repo description.

Updating workshop-specific info

Fill in workshop details in _config.yml and index.md
Modify workshop-specific resources in _includes/
1. intro.html:
2. who.html:
3. setup.html:
4. syllabus.html:
5. schedule.html:

Optional: Making an empty Main Branch

By default, when a user goes to the GitHub repository for the workshop, they will be confused by seeing confusing instructions about building a website. We can move all of these supporting files away from view, and have a fresh space to store workshop-related files such as Jupyter/R Notebooks, EtherPad exports, etc.

Using GitHub GUI

Using command line interface

If you have not already done so, clone the workshop repository to your computer and change directories into the workshop repo directory. (For illustration purposes, the fictional 2021-08-20-smithsonian repository is used here. Replace this repo name with your workshop repo name.)
```
git clone https://github.com/SmithsonianWorkshops/2021-08-20-smithsonian.git
cd 2021-08-20-smithsonian
```
Check the existing branches. There should be only one branch, gh-pages, where the course website files are located.
```
git branch
```
Create and switch to a new local branch, main. (The --orphan option allows for cleaner history tracking for the new branch.)
```
git checkout --orphan main
```
Remove all existing files on this new branch. (Double check that you’re in the workshop repo and on the main branch before you run this command!)
```
git branch
git rm -rf .
```
If you check the directory, you will see that it is now empty. If you switch back to the gh-pages branch, you should see all the course website files reappear.
```
git checkout gh-pages
```
Switch back to main. Then add a README.md file using nano or the text editor of your choice. Stage and commit this README file.
```
git checkout main
nano README.md
git add README.md
git commit -m "Create main branch and add README"
```
You can also add any additional files you would like to make available to students. (e.g. Jupyter Notebooks, R Notebooks, SQL files, etc.)
Push the new main branch to the workshop GitHub repository. Since main currently exists only as a local branch, you will need to specify a new remote origin.
```
git push -u origin main
```
Go to the workshop repository on GitHub. Go to Settings > Pages and confirm that the Source for the course website is currently listed as gh-pages.
Go to Settings > Branches. Under Default branch, click the icon to Switch to another branch. Choose main, and click Update. You will see a warning message about unintended consequences of changing the default branch. Click the I understand, update the default branch button.
Confirm that the workshop repository is defaulting to the new main branch and that the course website is still showing up properly.