Building a Project Portfolio

Introduction

The purpose of this session is to familiarize you with the basic steps of setting up a documentation website.

Why is it important to document your work?

• Building a portfolio of design work. If you'd like to ever get a job in product design, it's important to be able to show what you've done.
• Documenting your decision making. Explaining how and why you got to the end of your design starts by documenting your process.
• sharing your work with others. If you want others to follow in your path, it is important to have a centralized place to store all of your design files and parts lists and code.
• Demonstrate your knowledge of key tools, such as git, Python, CAD design, and E-CAD.
• Can you think of other reasons why creating a website is important for you?

We will set up a website on GitHub, which offers free hosting as well as support for Markdown, which is a common approach for quickly writing up documentation.

We will also be using zensical, a Python package that creates nicely formatted and standardized documentation sites.

Overview

1. Create an account on GitHub.
2. Fork my template repository
3. Update the repository configuration with your own data
4. Add pages
5. Continue populating and updating your pages throughout the rest of your project.

What is git vs. github?

Git is a program used for managing code across multiple users and computers. Github is a commercial website run by Microsoft that allows users to manage git repositories, along with a suite of tools that surround it.

Steps

1. Create a new account on GitHub. If you don't have one already, it might be a smart idea to create a new account on GitHub. GitHub is one of the world's most popular sites for sharing code and documentation.
2. Fork my template repository: https://github.com/danb0b/template_zensical/fork

3. Deselect the "copy the main branch only" option and continue.

   

4. In the newly forked repository, click on "settings"

   

5. Right at the top under "General", select the repository name:

   

6. You need to rename this repository EXACTLY following this template:

   <your-user-name>.github.io

   where <your-user-name> is your github username. For example, if my github username is danaukestest01, I would rename the repository:

   danaukestest01.github.io

   

7. Select "Actions" from the top menu of your repository:

   

   1. Acknowledge the use of actions

      

8. Navigate to the "code" tab at the top of the repository page and select .github/workflows

   

9. select docs.yml, and when the page opens, click "edit this file" on the top right of the page

   

10. rename the file from docs.yml to pages.yml

    

    This has the effect of triggering a run of the newly-renamed action. You should be able to track the progress of this build action in the "actions" tab

11. Once the pages have been built, go back to settings and on the left-hand menu, and select "pages".

    

12. Your site should show up at the link listed.

    

13. Click on it to see how it renders:

Settings to Check

1. go to the repository's settings. Navigate to actions --> general.

   

2. Ensure read/write access:

   

3. go to the repository's settings. Navigate to deploy keys. Ensure they are enabled: