EXERCISE

You are ready to engage in a bit of mock code collaboration.

Prerequisites

To recap, we expect that you have completed all steps in the previous sections, and that you have:

• installed Visual Studio Code
• created a GitHub account
• logged into GitHub from within VS Code

STEP #1 - Fork this repository

As mentioned, MDI Basic Training is a public GitHub repository. Your first step is to fork it into your GitHub account:

• go to: https://github.com/MiDataInt/mdi-basic-training
• find and click “Fork” in the upper right corner

That’s it! You now have your own complete copy of this web page on GitHub.

STEP #2 - Clone your fork using VS Code

Your fork of the repo is currently only on GitHub. You need to have a copy on your local computer so that you can edit it. To do this:

• Go to your fork on GitHub
• Click the big green ‘Code’ button
• Copy the link, i.e., https://github.com/YOUR_GIHUB_USERNAME/mdi-basic-training.git
• Open VS Code
• If you have a file or folder open, use ‘File’ to close it
• See: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/github#_cloning-a-repository
  • Click the Source Control icon in the left sidebar
  • Click ‘Clone Repository’
  • Paste in the link you copied above
  • Pick a folder where your clone will be stored

You will now have a local copy of your fork, ready to edit in VS Code.

STEP #3 - Edit a file in your clone

Take a minute to browse around the folders of the Basic Training repository. Can you find the file that has the text for this page?

Do whatever you want to edit this page to make it different. These are the changes you will send back up the chain. Save the file.

STEP #4 - Push the changes to your fork on GitHub

The changes you just made are currently only found on your local computer. To get them onto GitHub:

• Click the Source Control icon in the leftmost sidebar
• Find the “+” symbol for your Changes
• Click the “+” symbol, which will add, or stage, your changes
• Type a short message in the text box, e.g. “increment status.yml”
• Find and click the checkmark icon, which will commit your changes
• Click the “…” icon and find and click “Push”, which will push your changes to your fork of the repository on GitHub

To summarize, you just went through three basic actions in Git:

• “add”, i.e., stage, code changes for committing
• “commit” changes, with a short, descriptive message
• “push” changes from your local computer to GitHub

STEP #5 - Make a pull request on GitHub

The changes you just made are now on GitHub, but only in your fork. You are free to use them there however you’d like (e.g., you could run your own version of this web page).

However, if you wanted your changes added to the MDI Basic Training page, you must make a “Pull Request”, which means you will ask the MDI maintainers to pull the change from your fork into the main repo.

You should explore these actions, but not necessarily complete them. We will not accept trival Pull Requests, only serious efforts to improve this tutorial.

• Go to your fork of the Basic Training repository on GitHub
• Verify that you see the evidence of your recent commit
• Find and click the “Contribute” button
• Click the big green button labeled “Open Pull Request” (or don’t…)

STEP #6 - Wait for your changes to be accepted

If you made a serious pull request, once an MDI maintainer reviewed and merged your changes into the definitive repository, you would see evidence of them by reloading this web page.

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