Preparing GitHub for EECS 441 Labs

There are several ways to interact with GitHub. In this course, we will use GitHub Desktop, which provides a visual interface to interact with GitHub and is independent of any IDEs. If you are proficient with git, you don’t have to use GitHub Desktop. However, we can only help with GitHub Desktop, so if you use anything else, you will be on your own.

GitHub requires a personal access token to use HTTPS git. Please follow GitHub’s instructions to create a classic personal access token. Create a classic personal access token instead of a fine-grained one as students have had problems with the fine-grained access tokens.

Create your 441 GitHub repo

On your browser, create a new, PRIVATE 441 repo with your GitHub account:

  1. In the upper-right corner of your GitHub page, use the drop-down menu labeled +, and select New repository (screenshot).

  2. Name the new repo 441 and set its visibility to Private.

  3. Check Add .gitignore, choose either

  1. Click the big green Create repository. (You will be overwriting the .gitignore later, this is just the simplest way to create a non-empty repo.)

Note: for this and subsequent labs, we will assume your folders/directories are named according to the “canonical” names used in the spec. You can choose a different name other than 441, but be aware that you’d have to map the names used in the specs to your naming scheme in all labs, for both front and back end.

Please invite eecs441staff@umich.edu as collaborator to your repo:

If you’re working on the lab as a team, please keep your lab’s solution in ONE member’s 441 git repo ONLY. Invite your team mate to your repo by navigating to Settings > Manage access > Invite a collaborator as per above and enter your team mate’s GitHub account or UM email address.

Clone your 441 GitHub repo to your laptop

To prepare your git repo:

  1. Download a copy of the course gitignore and save it in YOUR*LABS*FOLDER as .gitignore (note the leading dot before the filename). If your laptop OS prevents you from saving a file with a leading dot in its name, download the file to your YOUR*LABS*FOLDER as gitignore without the leading dot and then run in Terminal or PowerShell:
     laptop$ cd YOUR*LABS*FOLDER
     laptop$ mv gitignore .gitignore
    

    This overwrites the .gitignore GitHub added earlier when creating your repo.

  2. Create a sub-folder YOUR*LABS*FOLDER/chatter to hold your project files for the chatter lab.
  3. From GitHub Desktop commit these changes and push them to your 441 repo on GitHub.
Back to: Chatter Kotlin Chatter Swift

Resources

Following are some useful resources to familiarize you with GitHub Desktop.


Prepared for EECS 441 by Mark Wassink, Rithika Ganesh, and Sugih Jamin Last updated: August 25th, 2024