GHD_create.qmd

# Creating Your Website {.sec-desktop}

<br>

If you just downloaded GitHub Desktop for the first time, your application should still be on the "Let's Get Started" page. We are going to leave that alone for now.

In your browser, navigate to your GitHub account. We are going to create a repository for your website project.

These instructions largely follow the instructions from GitHub, found [here](https://pages.github.com/).

To start, we will create a repository (you can think of this as a folder for your project).

1. On your computer, create a folder somewhere. We recommend naming it something like "my_website".
2. On GitHub.com, the top menu bar has a "+" icon. Click it.
3. In the drop-down that appears, click "New repository".
4. This will re-direct you to a page titled "Create a new repository" with various fields to fill out.
5. Under the field "Repository name" you need to enter \[username\].github.io where \[username\] is replaced by your actual username.
  <ol type="a">
    <li>For example, if your username is "pandabear", then your repository would be called "pandabear.github.io".</li>
  </ol>
6. Add a quick description in the "Description" field, such as "My professional website".
7. Under visibility, select "Public".
8. <details><summary>The other fields can be left on their defaults.</summary>
  <ol>
    <li>Start with a template: "No template"</li>
    <li>Add README: Off</li>
    <li>Add .gitignore: "No .gitignore"</li>
    <li>Add license: "No license"</li>
  </ol>
</details>
9. Now you can select the green "Create repository" button.
10. GitHub will now re-direct you to the repository page. There should be nothing in it.

Now, we can return to the GitHub Desktop application. 

1. Click the little refresh button next to the "Filter your repositories" text box.
2. Select the repository you just created.
3. Now, a blue botton at the bottom "Clone yourusername/yourrepo" appears. Click it.
4. There will be a pop-up titled "Clone a repository".
  <ol type="a">
    <li>Leave the repository URL as is (assuming you clicked the right one!)</li>
    <li>You need to choose the local path where you would like to host your repository. Click the "Choose" button. I leave the "Clone As" field as is, and then I select the folder where I want to store this.^[I have a folder called Projects.]</li>
    <li>Click "Select".</li>
    <li>Click "Clone".</li>