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Clone your repository to your local machine

Now that we have all of our software installed, we will configure git on our local machine to interact with GitHub. Our first goal is to download the materials in your GitHub repository to your local machine.

When we have the files on our local machine, we can then make changes using an editor of our choice. We recommend using The Jupyter Notebook to edit .ipynb files, so you can see exactly how they will look online.

Note

There are a variety of other editors that will open and edit .ipynb files, from the most basic tools like TextEdit (OS X) or Notepad (Windows 10) to advanced, fully-featured Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) such as Visual Studio and PyCharm. For our purposes, simple editors will be enough but you may eventually want to investigate other options that have many helpful features.

Navigating folders in terminal and Git Bash

Both the terminal (Apple OS X) and Git Bash (Microsoft Windows 10) use unix for navigating and working with local folders and files. We will use some basic commands to move around in your local folders and files.

Note

Our goal is mainly to be able to navigate the file system, not to do any advanced tasks with Unix commands. If you would like to learn more unix commands, we recommend:

• Command Line lesson from the Digital Humanities Research Institute curriculum

• The Unix Shell lesson from Software Carpentry from Software Carpentry

• Introduction to the Bash Command Line from The Programming Historian

We will learn three unix commands for navigating folders:

Unix command	English meaning	purpose
pwd	Present Working Directory	outputs your current location on your computer file system
ls	list	outputs the files and directories in your current location
ls -a	list all	the addition of the -a flag includes output of hidden files and directories which begin with a period
cd folderName/	change directory	moves the user down into the folderName directory
cd ..	change directory	moves the user up one directory
cd ~	change directory	move to user’s home directory

Note

On Apple OS X, the user’s home directory is /Users/UserName. On Microsoft Windows 10, the user’s home directory is usually /c/Users/UserName

Open either terminal and Git Bash to try out each of these commands. Explore your file system for practice. Finally, navigate to the directory where you would like to make a copy of your website on your local machine.

Note

When you are navigating to a particular file or directory using cd, you usually do not need to type out the whole name. Simply type out a few letters then press tab. If there is a single match in the current directory, the full name will be completed automatically! If the name is not auto-completed, press tab twice to show all matching results for the letters typed so far. You can then type a few more letters to make your selection clear before tabbing one more time to automatically complete the name.

Setting up git on your local machine

We will use the following git commands to set up git. We will only use them a single time. They are important for setup, but you will not use them again unless you set up git on another machine or need to re-install git.

git setup commands	English meaning	purpose
git config --global user.name "Judith Cohen"	Configure the global git user with this name	Sets the user name in git. Only needs to be run once.
git config --global user.email "username@gmail.com"	Configure the global git user with this email address	Sets the user email for git. Use the same email address as your GitHub account. Only needs to be run once.

Cloning your repository

The clone command helps us copy a repository from GitHub to our local machine. First, however, we need to grab an address from GitHub to clone our repository. Open your web browser and log into GitHub. Click on your repository. Then click on the large, green “Code” button. Finally click on the clipboard to copy the “HTTPS” address. The address will look like https://github.com/yourGitHubUserName/yourRepoName.git

Return to your terminal or Git Bash. Use the pwd command to confirm you are in the directory where you would like to make a local copy of your repository. If everything looks good, run git clone followed by the address you copied. It should look something like:

git clone https://github.com/yourGitHubUserName/yourRepoName.git

Warning

The familiar shortcut for paste in Windows (Ctrl + V) does not work in Git Bash. To paste in Git Bash, you can use the keyboard key “Insert” or right-click then select “paste”.

Congratulations! You’ve copied your repository to your local machine. Now let’s learn how to make changes.

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Installing Software on your Local Machine

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Make local changes