Setting up new digital resources
Atom Text editor
You are (likely) reading this on Gitbook, derived from files hosted on Github. You can see the Github file for this page here
. That file is written in "Markdown", a simple text formatting language. For a guide to writing .md (markdown) files, take a look here. But your first steps should be:
Atom is a free and simple text editor, useful for working with many different kinds of file formats, including MD, HTML and TEI files. If you use Linux, you can also use Remarkable for editing markdown files (.md), which has the benefit of providing a live preview of how the file will look online. Visual Studio Code is another option for Linux, Windows and Mac; with a bit of work it can also be configured to provide a live preview.
Sign up for a GitHub account - either by going to the top right hand corner of this page and click on the Sign Up link or by clicking here. Use whatever name you wish, but make sure to add your username to this spreadsheet. Provide the URL to your Github account in the spreadsheet. My personal Github profile is https://github.com/MarcSaurette.
Try to integrate your account on Slack. I think it should be as easy as typing "/github signin" under the Slack app channel and then following the instructions they provide, It might not. If not, let me know on Slack.
The reason why you need to let me know you're profile is so that I can invite you to join the organizational Github MedievalBook. This might take a day or so for me to do, but you can keep going before that happens.
Navigate to our organizational repository and press on the button "Fork" at the top right hand corner of the page. "Forking" copies the contents of this repository to your own Github repository so you can edit it.
On your forked repository (which automatically will be given the name
[Your username]/HIST4006
), edit the Readme.md file by clicking the file name and then on the pencil icon at the top right corner of the text box. You should add you name and link to your Github profile in the following fashion:- [Name that you want to appear](url of your Github profile)
- [Marc Saurette](https://github.com/MarcSaurette)
Press the "Commit Changes" button to save the file.
There are several readme.md files in the various folders - so be sure you edited only the Readme.md in the /HIST4006 folder.
Now return to the Folios folder of your repository (something like Username/HIST4006/Folios) and create a new file by clicking on the "Create New File" button that should be middle to top right corner of the page. You will be prompted to give it a name.
Use the following convention: "Your last name, Code for text." E.g.
Saurette, Ottawa CU ARC charter 2
. Here CU = Carleton University and ARC = Archives and Research Collection. Your texts will usually either be "ARC ms. fol. X" or "CUAG ms. fol. Y" if it is one of the manuscript (ms.) folios (fol.) on loan to ARC from the Carleton University Art Gallery.Press the "Commit Changes" button to save the file.
Now look for the tab "Pull Requests" on the top left corner of the page. Click on it. Then click on the green button on the top right corner "New Pull Request". This will load a page entitled "Comparing changes" and if all is well, then you can press the green button "Create new pull request".
You will be prompted to type a title, which can be something as simple as "[Your name here] is updating the readme.md file and adding their folio page". You don't need to add any description. You can choose to be more whimsical in your prose.
Then press the green button "Create Pull Request". And you are done.
I need to approve your "Pull Request", which updates your changes to the master copy at https://github.com/MedievalBook. You should get a notification when I have approved your request.
You will need to install and set up Atom. Luckily for me, another medievalist, Andrew Dunning has written a guide to help you get it set up. Either click through to the next page or click here.
You will need to download and install Atom (and likely Java). Likely the easist is to do that via a web browser (so scroll down to those instructions)
Then once Atom is running, you will need to install a number of additional 'packages'. Again, Andrew Dunning's guide will offer you instructions on going about doing this.
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