#Principles, Practices and Project Management ##### Week 1 --- This week I learned about version control, web development using SSGs, and sketched out an initial final project idea. ### Page Summary 1. Version control 2. Git and GitLab 3. Setting up Git for FabAcademy documentation 3.1 SSH key 4. Basic workflow and repository structure 4.1 Working through a Git Tutorial 5. About CI/CD 6. Web Development with Static Site Generators 7. YAML file 8. Web Design 9. Misc upload practices 10. Important and Interesting Links 11. Initial Final Project Ideas 12. About page --- 1. Version Control --- Version control, is the practice of tracking and managing changes to software code. Version control systems are software tools that help teams manage changes to source code over time. Ref: [What is version control](https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/what-is-version-control) 2. Git and GitLab --- 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 where all projects related to the academies and student documentation websites are hosted. Ref: [Git](https://git-scm.com/about) 3. Setting up Git for FabAcademy documentation --- On Fabcloud our individual repositories are housed under Academany > FabAcademy > Year > List of Labs > Lab > Students > Name. One way to log on to Fabcloud is use login credentials from fablabs.io. That is also what you use for other FabAcademy communication. 1. Install Git on your local computer. Install Git through the command line - Terminal app (macOS). Install [Homebrew](https://brew.sh/), a package manager using the instructions on the website.  and then `brew install git` There are other ways to install git as mentioned on the website too. Ref: https://git-scm.com/download/mac 2. Configure user To configure your user from scratch, in your terminal, add your Git username and set your email fro uploading `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. 3. Generate SSH key Check if you have an SSH KEY already `cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub` If not, generate it using `ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "emaitee@gmail.com"` Then use the above command to view your public key and copy it. Upload this key on the Gitlab Website onthe browser. Go to user profile > Settings > SSH keys and copy it there. Now, your Gitlab server is securely linked to your local computer. 4. Start a git repository On your local computer, make a new folder wherever you want to store your documentation. Using terminal, cd to that folder and make it a git repo Using `git init` This initialises the local folder as a git repo. 5. Clone repository Your student repo consists of the default student template. First task is to clone this existing template to your local repo. After you cd to your local repo, use this to clone. `git clone git@gitlab.fabcloud.org:academany/fabacademy/2020/labs/barcelona/students/mitalee-parikh.git` Now, you have made a clone of the template on your local repository.  4. Basic workflow and repository structure --- The most routine workflow for git : **status-(pull)-add-commit-push** `git status` to check what's happening with the current directory, check if the local and remote repos are synced or need to be updated `git pull` to pull files from the remote repo to the local repo, very important if multiple people are pushing to the repo `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, adding a message helps identify and keep a track of the changes made in that particular commit `git push` to push only the changes from the local .git repo to Gitlab cloud repo I find this diagram very helpful to visualise the directory structure:  My first commit from git log  Some other commands that might help: `git clone` Clone a repository into a new current local directory, to do once at the beginning of documentation `git init` Create an empty Git repository or re-initialize an existing one (starts a .git folder on local computer where all changes will be saved) `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 It is easier to undo a staged file, i.e. after git add but more difficult to undo a committed file, after git commit, but still possible. Check this guide in case of need to undo anything. Ref: [How to undo (almost) anything with Git](https://github.blog/2015-06-08-how-to-undo-almost-anything-with-git/) 5. About CI/CD --- Continuous Integration complies websites with static site generators. Ref: [docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/) 6. Web Development with SSGs --- 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. Static Site generators 7. YAML file --- First git reads the YAML file .gitlab-ci.yml https://gitlab.com/pages This page has examples of different .yml files which changes according to Static Site Generaotrs like Hugo, Jekyll, or Wikis like Gitbook, etc. and even plain-HTML. The FabAcademy default website is based on Mkdocs. 8. 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/) 9. Misc Practices --- There is a 10Mb limit per commit for FabAcademy documentation, so all big images, videos (if not hosted) need to be compressed into smaller sizes. `du -sh * ` to check file sizes `du -sh * | sort -n ` sorts the files by size 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` 10. Important and interesting links --- #### 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 Gitlab example pages with all compatible SSGs https://gitlab.com/pages Everyhting is a file Linus kernel development video 11. Initial Final Project Ideas --- 12. About Page ---