Principles, Practices and Project Management --- ##### Week of 29 January 2020 #### Principles and Practices - [notes](https://fabacademy.org/2020/labs/barcelona/local/#material/week01/) + [video](https://vimeo.com/388191611) #### Project Management - [notes](http://academy.cba.mit.edu/classes/project_management/index.html) + [video](https://vimeo.com/388201669) # Project management --- This week I learned about version control, web development using SSGs, and sketched out an initial final project idea. ## Version Control Version control, is the practice of tracking and managing changes to software code. Version control systems are software tools that help software teams manage changes to source code over time. ### What is Git? --- Git is an open source distributed version control system. GitLab is a web-based Git repository for faster and more efficient collaboration of software code. FabAcademy uses a self-hosted version of GitLab on FabCloud at [gitlab.fabcloud.org](gitlab.fabcloud.org), which is were all projects related to the academies and student documentation websites are hosted. #1 Setting up Git Since I had already created used git before, I found my existing SSH key using `~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub` Copied and added it to my FabCloud account. To configure your user from scratch git config --global user.name "mitalee.parikh" git config --global user.email "emaitee@gmail.com" This helps in tracking who makes the changes on the shared gitlab repo which is public. Then I cloned the default repository on Gitlab to a local folder using:`git clone git@gitlab.fabcloud.org:academany/fabacademy/2020/labs/barcelona/students/mitalee-parikh.git` #2 Basic workflow and repository structure I've used git a little for my Master's documentation. But till now, just used some basic commands like: `git clone` Clone a repository into a new current local directory `git init` Create an empty Git repository or reinitialize an existing one (starts a .git folder on local computer where all changes will be saved) `git status` to check what's happening with the current directory After making changes to files, `git add .` to add all changes from the working directory to the staging area `git commit -m "action msg"` to commit changes from the staging area to the local .git repo `git push` to push only the changes from the local .git repo to Gitlab cloud repo `git pull` to pull files from the remote repo to the local repo I find this diagram very helpful to visualise the directory structure:  Some other commands that might help: `du -sh * ` to check file sizes `du -sh * | sort -n ` sorts the files by size `git help` for help with git commands Git had very detailed error msgs, so it is advisable to read and follow them to find solutions with issues. `git diff` Show changes between commits, commit and working tree, etc `git log` Show commit logs 10Mb limit per commit It is easier to undo a staged file, i.e. after git add but more difficut to undo a commited file , after git commit, but still possible #3 CI/CD Continuous Integration complies websites with static site generators. https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/ #4 How does git work? First it reads the YAML file .gitlab-ci.yml ## Web Development --- I recently learned how to make a website using HTML, CSS with a Bootstrap framework. To develop my webpage, I wanted to explore different Static Site Generators before fixing on one. So I started by setting up both Mkdocs and Jekyll. Hugo was another option I want to look into in the coming weeks. //### Web Design //Grid, colours, font - Helvetica, if you write a sentence in helvetica it is supposed to be the truth. (-Barbara Stauffacher Solomon) ### Setting up jekyll --- I followed this [Jekyll tutorial](https://jekyll.org) by [Giraffe Academy](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLAZ4kZ9dFpOPV5C5Ay0pHaa0RJFhcmcB). Before installing jekyll, I checked if I had these supporting things, and updated them: 1\. **Homebrew:** to easily install software packages 2\. **Ruby:** programming language that jekyll is written in 3\. **RubyGems:** package manager for ruby 4\. **Bundler:** to track and install gems and versions in a group, for jekyll themes Homebrew, Ruby and Gem were all pre-installed. So I checked versions using `ruby -v` and `gem -v` I installed bundler with `gem install jekyll bundler`, but got a permissions error msg. So, I tried it with sudo like so: `sudo gem install jekyll bundler` and it worked. And then to make sure checked version: `gem install jekyll bundler` To view the changes on my local server `http://localhost:4000` I used `bundle exec jekyll serve` the first time and `jekyll serve` everytime after. ### Setting up Mkdocs Setting up Mkdocs was a similar process. Intalling and upgrading package manager pip `pip install --upgrade pip` to install mkdocs: `pip install mkdocs` To view the changes on my local server `http://127.0.0.1:8000` I used `mkdocs serve` #### Themes I tried to clone and modify some jekyll themes I downloaded from [rubygems.org](https://rubygems.org/). While pushing it to gitlab, I wasn't sure what files to keep from the default fabcloud repo. So I replaced them all, but there was an issue with my pipeline. I think it has something to do with the config.yml file. While I figure that out, I'm using this default template to document my process. ### Useful links * [Jekyll](http://jekyll.org) [tutorial by Giraffe Academy](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLAZ4kZ9dFpOPV5C5Ay0pHaa0RJFhcmcB) * [Markdown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown) [basic tutorial](https://www.markdowntutorial.com/) * [Mkdocs guidelines](https://www.mkdocs.org/) ## Misc Practices --- Before pushing, I used `ncdu` to check sizes of files. To compress my images I installed and used [ImageMagick](https://imagemagick.org/index.php). I found it very efficient to quickly convert or compress images for the web, and also to make quick GIFs. After some trial and error, i figureed these basic commands and settings I can use for my workflow: To compress photos taken from my phone: `convert IMGname.HEIC -resize 25% -quality 50% -density 72 jpg:extent=300kb IMGnewname.jpg` To compress images taken as screenshot from my computer: `convert Screenshot\ 2020-02-18\ at\ 10.54.27\ AM.png -resize 50% -quality 50% -density 72 jpg:extent=300kb newname.jpg` To make a quick GIF: `convert -resize 25% -delay 15 -loop 0 IMG_1380.HEIC IMG_1381.HEIC IMG_1382.HEIC IMG_1386.HEIC IMG_1387.HEIC IMG_1388.HEIC animation.gif` And to check the existing properties of an image: `magick identify -verbose focus.gif` I also check individual file sizes by changing current directory in terminal and using `du -sh *|sort -n`