How should I provide guidelines for issues? (Github) - github

I want to give the users of my repository some info on how they should report issues and what info they should provide. What is the best way to present this information, and where? I was hoping there would be a readme on the /issues tab but there seems no such option. Maybe I should create an 'issue' named 'Read before creating issue'?

If you're worried about the added clutter in the root directory of your project.
You can put CONTRIBUTING.md, ISSUE_TEMPLATE.md, and PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md files in the project directory.
Yes, it will easy both parties to creating the issue or pull request fill all info.
What is the best way to present this information, and where?
Put it into your this three files and file name should be same as here.
More information about it

I'm not sure if github exclusively provides any such feature. Alternatively, you could include the guidelines (or link to- how to create an issue) in the readme.md file at the main branch of the project (e.g. a section #HowToCreateAnIssue along with other sections). At least, this is what I follow.

For my Projects (and I guess thats how most People will handle it) I added a readme to the Projects repository and create a link to the most important wiki pages. The wiki will be managed as an additional repository and provides possibility to store Information and updates as needed.
If you also have a Webpage created this could also be a place to add some Information on how to participate as a contributor.

Related

How can I rename a Page/Topic on GitHub wiki without renaming the file?

I want to update Topic/page titles on my GitHub wiki (which is currently using Markdown syntax). When I do that using the GUI it renames the Markdown files, and breaks all of the links.
I know that I can rename the Topic files in the Git repository and push the changes, but that doesn't help the broken links.
Is there a way to avoid this, and make GitHub Wiki's behave more like other Wiki products? I could not find an better way on GitHub documentation.
Welcome to StackOverflow. As best I can determine you cannot rename a GitHub Wiki page without its markdown file also being updated to the new name. The two are tightly coupled.
This Web Applications (StackExchange) Question has some alternatives you may consider, i.e. instead of renaming the page, create a copy. Then edit the original page so that it directs visitors to the new page via a link. This way the original page link remains valid but directs visitors to the new page.

Is there a way to add custom "badges" to files on GitHub?

I have it in my head to help people at my company get better by finding a way to highlight and call out good code.
In particular, I'd like to be able to mark a file (not a repository or directory) as having a "gold star" (or another badge) so people browsing our source code who see the badge can see they're looking at a really good implementation they might take inspiration from.
I'm taking inspiration from the code owners feature on GitHub where there's a little padlock icon on a file if it's assigned ownership by the CODEOWNERS file.
Is it possible to do a custom "badge" on GitHub? If so, what's the API?
Browsing the GitHub documentation and searching online, I wasn't able to find anything explaining how to do something like this. Most folks were talking about the little images badges like the code coverage badges people put in their readme files.
Checkout this thread. You can submit feature request to GitLab and GitHub or in case of GitLab code your own feature and submit PR.
Here are some closely related discussions. Probably you have already seen them and are not looking for them but you might use them to get idea of how to create the feature that you want.
The Shields service (at shields.io) provides a way to create custom badges for your projects. These are badges are very common and are frequently used to show status information about the project, or demonstrate tools that were used for the development of your project. (...more)
Also checkout Bring Your Own Badge

Disable zip downloads from github

Is there any way to disable viewers to download my files from github?
I want to show my work, but I am afraid anybody can steal my code.
You can't, Github actually means you want to share something with the community, or you are showcasing your work in the open source community. Unfortunately you cannot restrict the users from downloading your content from your Repository.
Alternatively what you can do Just make your Repository private. But then in this case you are not able to make you work available to view for audience.
More you can read here :-
https://help.github.com/en/github/building-a-strong-community/limiting-interactions-in-your-repository
Disabling zip/tarballs on GitHub at the moment seems to be impossible, but it would be useful for those using git submodules, which are not included in the automatic created archives, where the repository owner could replace them with a continuous integration job with something like git-archive-all.

Can i fork this code from gist and using it for my own projects?

Hello I'm new to Github/Gist and I want to use this code, but I need to modify it a little bit. Can i just fork this code and modify it to use it for my own projects? Or do i have to link to the author etc.? Here is the link: https://gist.github.com/learncodeacademy/777349747d8382bfb722
Thank you!
Github repositories are meant to be forked. You don't have to ask an author for permission. Anyway, the gist you linked to has already been forked 30 times.
When you are using a forked repository.It shows up as "forked from xyz". So attribution is automatic. But if you want to, you can always give an extra credit to the author by mentioning it specifically.
Forking a repository on Github, creates an individual copy of the code. This feature is meant to encourage collaboration as well as allow you to experiment with the repositories code. Forking can be used to propose new changes to someone else's code or jumpstart an idea or a new project. As the repository was created by someone else, it is always important to understand the limitations of using their code for your own projects (especially if you plan on selling this product). Every repository created on Github has the chance to create a license file. This file will tell you what you can or cannot do with the forked code. Often open source code is meant to be used and shared with everyone, but it is still good to check. Here is Githubs documentation on forking repositories: https://help.github.com/articles/fork-a-repo/. For more information on licensing files see http://choosealicense.com/. Github gists follow the same standard. If you are still worried, it does not hurt to contact the owner of the repository and verify that you can use it for your own projects.
The point of open sourcing code on GitHub is for others to take and use for themselves and learn from it. Also, like fuchsteufelswild said, when forking on GitHub it automatically gives credit to the author so you should be good.

GitHub wiki directories

Does the wiki that installs with a GitHub repo support directories? Our wiki is cluttered with pages, and we are looking for a way to organize them better.
We tried pulling the repo, creating local directories, and moving things around, but when committed back, the wiki didn't pick up the changes.
I was having the exact same issue and tried variants of what you tried. Nothing stuck. Asked GitHub support about it and received a reply that essentially said "No, but we'll let the developers know that people are interested in this feature."
So the short answer is "No", and the long answer is "No, but maybe in the future."
Actually, it looks like github added support for directories recently.
I was able to do the following:
Move an existing markdown file to a new directory.
Create a new markdown file in an existing directory (created in the former step).
Create a new markdown file in a new directory.
In all cases, the existing pages were still there and new pages were added.
The one constraint that remains is that your file names must be unique. If you have more than one file with the same name, only one of them will show up in the wiki (I'm not sure which.. ).
The GitHub wiki (aka Gollum) does use directories but not in the way you may expect.
The documentation on the Gollum wiki could use some work but this is what I have figured out mostly via testing.
All files appear in the root of the wiki no matter where they are placed in the repo.
_Header, _Footer and _Sidebar files are per-directory, but inherited if there is
none present in a child folder.
File links can be relative to the source file (keep your files with your content).
So, if you want directories for namespacing you are out of luck. Consider using the {namespace}-{page} scheme for namespacing.
It's not the an ideal solution but the workaround would be to create a custom sidebar where you create a table of contents with links to your pages. I find this to be better than folders anyway because it allows you to have a link to a single page under multiple hierarchies.
Actually, there is still a limitation. Yes, you can add 1 level (so, 1 subfolder). But that's it! I refactored my whole documentation layout, creating multiple levels of subfolders for organisation, but that was a no-go.
sigh
I must say: I'm appalled by this Gollum thing. I'm surprised Github even picked it up.
Well, that's a disappointing missing feature!
What I try to do is to actually have directories under a docs directory and in each one, a README.md file.
Not great...but works for documentation and organizes stuff.
If you want to go further, you can have a different branch only with these files.
Still no intention of adding this 9/2022.
https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/23914