Appendix - GitHub Pages

Scientific Publication on GitHub

You can use GitHub Pages to showcase some open source projects, host a blog, or even share your résumé. This guide will help get you started on creating your next website.

Why GitHub Pages?

Free as in speech and free as in price.
“Easy” by the standards of web-hosting and scientific publication.
Cool as heck.

Why not GitHub Pages?

Reliant on the enduring good graces of Microsoft, which funds GitHub
Seems to change often in terms of years (not e.g. months)
Requires lots of tiny changes in lots of places.

Requirements

A GitHub account.
- Git
An HTML file.
- Quarto

Steps

Create a repository.
- GitHub: About repositories
- This class: Repositories
Add an HTML file to the repository.
Configure the repository to publish to GitHub Pages.

Step 1

Already covered in Git - Repositories
- Follow until you have an index.qmd on GitHub.com
Extra considerations:
- Name the repository some that will be in the URL
  - It will be <your-github-user>.github.io/<your-repository-name>
- Name your Quarto Markdown (.qmd) file index.qmd
  - This is the default name for a webpage, and makes your life easier.

Step 2

Already covered in Quarto - Essentials
- Follow until you have an index.qmd on GitHub.com
Extra considerations:
- Include embed-resources: true in your YAML header.
  - Quarto - Easy Mode
- Double check you have a file named index.html
  - It is possible to use another name, but not easy.

Step 3

This is new content.
There are many steps, each is essential.
Skip no steps; perform checks at all steps.

Check 1 - Folder

You should be working in a local (on your computer) folder that corresponds to a remote (on GitHub) repository.
I should contain exactly two files.
- Verify with ls
```
$ ls
index.html  index.qmd
```
If you see anything else, it is wrong, and you should fix it or start over.

Check 1 - Likely mistake

The most likely other thing to see is the following:

$ ls
index.html  index.qmd  index_files/

To fix this:
- Remove index_files
```
rm -rf index_files
```
- Add the following to the YAML header of index.qmd
```
format:
  html:
      embed-resources: true
```

Check 2 - Repository

We split this into two checks:
- The local check, at command line.
- The remote check, on GitHub

Remote

Create a new repository
- Choose names you want.
- Set to public
  - If you are uncomfortable publishing under your own name, use a pseudonym and tell me the pseudonym.
  - I publish anonymously under names of cities.

Visually pt. 1

Visually pt. 2

The Bridge

We connect to the remote as follows…
- You may encounter authentication issues depending on how you set up your account last time.
- This assumes you completed Git - ssh

Bridge Setup

Wherever your local folder is, do the following:

git init
git add index.qmd index.html
git commit -m "First commit"
git branch -M main

Connect to Remote

Take not of the following, which you will have to ensure reflects your repository:
- Do not simply copy-paste this command.
```
git remote add origin git@github.com:<your-github-user>/<your-repository-name>.git
```

Finalize

Then push local changes to remote.

git push -u origin main

Verify Remote

Ensure your remote repository looks like this:
- It must have exactly two files with exactly these names.
- By the way, exactly means exactly.
- Index.html will not work; index.md will not work.

Verify Local (Two Checks)

Verify The presence of a hidden, .git folder when using the -a flag on ls
- It will not show up with ls as it starts with a .

$ ls -a
./  ../  .git/  index.html  index.qmd

The following status, with git status
- You may get a hint here, which may be ignored.

$ git status
On branch main
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/main'.

nothing to commit, working tree clean

Final Check

Try making a minor change to your index.qmd
- Render with quarto
- Commit with git
- Push with git
- Check that change shows up on GitHub.
Perhaps add or remove a middle initial from the author.
- Ensure both the .qmd and .html file change.

Step 3

Scientific Publication

Publishing Science is important:

…researchers from [industry and academia] often have similar goals and are motivated by common incentives. Their common interests converge in the forum of scientific publication.