Steps to Make a Bunch of Events for Scholars' Lab Website

1. Create a spreadsheet with the first row containing the following columns in this order (and including the colon):

   author: start_date: end_date: start_time: end_time: layout: location: slug: title: content: image: registration:

   The image and registration columns are optional

2. Fill in all the details for your events. Each event should have its own row.

   Note that the slug column will become the name of the file later in the process, and it must start with a letter (ie. don't start the slug with the date).

   The data in each cell should be in the following format (not including the column text, so, for example, do not include the text author = just the text ammon-shepherd). The image cell should have the name of an image file (ex. funny-picture.jpg). You will add the image file to the right folder in a later step. The content can be any text, in multiple lines, and include hyperlinks. The registration field can contain a single link, multiple links each on a separate line, or multiple links with the day of the week preceding the link each on a separate line. A comma must come after the day of the week.

   author =  ammon-shepherd
   start_date =  2019-10-21
   end_date = 2019-10-21
   start_time = 12:00:00
   end_time = 13:00:00
   layout = makerspace 
       or 
   layout = events
   location = Alderman Library 308i
   slug = workshop-2019-10-21-coding-minecraft-on-raspberry-pi
   title = Coding Minecraft on the Raspberry Pi
   content = This can be any text including hyperlinks
   image = funny-picture.jpg
   registration = Day of Week 1, https://link-to-registra.tion
                  Day of Week 2, https://link-to-registra.tion
                  Day of Week 3, https://link-to-registra.tion
   if there is only one registration link
   registration = https://link-to-registra.tion
   

3. Create the events in the Library's public events calendar in LibCal. If registration is required, copy the registration link and paste it back into the registration column in the spreadsheet.

4. Save the spreadsheet as a CSV file to your computer.

   • If saving from Microsoft Excell, make sure the file is in UTF-8 format and not "UTF-8 Unicode (with BOM) text, with very long lines". You can check the file format by running the file command in the terminallike so: file workshops.csv
   • To convert to just UTF-8, run a command like dos2unix like so: dos2unix workshops.csv

5. Create an empty folder on your computer named events.

6. Download the generate-events.py script and put it in the same folder where you made the events folder and put the CSV file. The CSV file, events folder, and generate-events.py file should all be in the same folder.

   If you have images, then open the generate-events.py file in a code editor. Change the line that looks like this: IMAGE_FOLDER = "workshops" Change workshops to be a descriptive name relating to your events, (ex. 2020-gis-events).

   If you named the CSV file 'workshops.csv', then execute the script from the command line like so: python generate-events.py workshops.csv

7. Add the files to the repo via web browser:

• 7.1 For browser based updating

  • 7.1.1 Log in to github.com and go to this repo page: https://github.com/scholarslab/scholarslab.org/tree/master/collections/_events . Click the Add file button and Upload files option. Drag or choose all of the .md files in the events folder.
  • 7.1.2 Add a short title that tells about the commit.
  • 7.1.3 Add an optional longer description about the commit.
  • 7.1.4 If you're confident this will not break anything, select Commit directly to the master branch. and press the big green button Commit changes.
  • 7.1.5 If you're not sure if this will break the site, or want other people to look it over before committing, select Create a new branch for this commit and start a pull request., either keep the default name or add your own, then press the big green button Propose changes.
  • 7.1.6 If you have images to upload, browse to this page: https://github.com/scholarslab/scholarslab.org/tree/master/assets/post-media .
    • Click the Add File dropdown, then select 'Create new file'. In the new page, type in the name of the image folder you used above in the generate-events.py file, followed by a forward slash / (ex. 2020-gis-events/).
    • In the new text field, type .gitkeep. This will trick GitHub into making a new empty folder.
    • Then click the big green Commit new file button at the bottom of the page.
    • Once more, go to the post-media page: https://github.com/scholarslab/scholarslab.org/tree/master/assets/post-media . Select the folder you just created.
    • Click the 'Add file' drop down, select the 'Upload files' option, and
    • drag or choose all of the images.
    • Add a title and description and then click the green "Commit changes" button.

• 7.2 For terminal based updating (no pull request option, it updates the live

• website)

  • 7.2.1 In the cloned repo in your terminal, make sure everything is up to date in the master branch. git pull
  • 7.2.2 Create a new branch. git checkout -b events-branch
  • 7.2.3 Add the files from the events folder to the collections/_events folder in the repo. Copy and paste using a graphical folder viewer or copy from the command line. cp path/to/events/*.md path/to/scholarslab.org/collections/_events
  • 7.2.4 If you have images, create a new folder (named the same as the IMAGE_FOLDER from above) in the assets/post-media/ folder (ex. assets/post-media/2020-gis-events). Then copy all of the images into that newly created folder.
  • 7.2.5 Add the new files to the branch: git add collections/_events and git add assets/post-media/, and then commit them: git commit -m "Adding new events"
  • 7.2.6 Test your changes. Run bundle exec jekyll serve and test in the browser. You may need to delete everything in the _site folder first.
  • 7.2.6 Switch back to the master branch: git checkout master
  • 7.2.7 Merge changes into master: git merge events-branch and fix conflicts if any.
  • 7.2.8 Push changes to GitHub: git push origin master
  • 7.2.9 You can now remove the branch: git branch -d events-branch

8. It will take about 10 minutes for the changes to show up on the website.