Local Development | Chemeketa CS

There are two different ways you can do local development for your Chemeketa CS courses:

If you want to be able to sync your work to GitHub and potentially use a Codespace later, you should use the first option. Otherwise, you can use either method.

The two methods are described below. Whichever method you choose, make sure your local environment is set up correctly by following the VSCode & Other Software Setup Guide.

You will also likely want to make a folder to hold all of your work for class. Any time you are making a folder or file for a CS class, here are some important tips:

Don't use spaces in file or folder names - they cause issues for some tools you will need to use.
NO: "cs161 Work"
YES: "cs161Work"
Don't put folders in OneDrive or iCloud. Those tools do tricky things to the filesystem that can cause issues. If you are on Windows, and put a folder in your Documents, make sure it is in a folder like "C:\Users\YOURNAME\Documents" and OneDrive does not appear in the folder path.

Locally Working on Github Repositories

Use the Codespace Guide to set up a repository that you will work on locally. You do not need to create a Codespace. If you already have a codespace set up, make sure to sync the changes in it to the repository before working locally.

Cloning the Repository Locally

In VSCode, open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P or Cmd+Shift+P on Mac) and type Git: Clone. Select that option. Then select Clone from GitHub. You may be redirected to the browser to authorize GitHub with VSCode if you have not done so already.

Then you should see a list of your repositories. Select the repository you created.

A dialog will open asking you where to save the repository locally. Select a folder where you want to keep your work.

Assuming you are working from a Chemeketa template, and that your local environment is set up correctly, GitDoc should track your work history just as if you were working in a Codespace. You also will be able to push (sync) your changes back to the repository on GitHub.

You should avoid working on the same repository both locally and in a Codespace at the same time. This can lead to conflicts and potentially lost work. If you have been working in one environment, sync your changes to the repository before switching to the other environment.

Completely Local Development

Pick a template to use for your project.

Basic Project Template - A C++ project with a main.cpp file.
Unit Test Template - A C++ project set up to run the doctest unit test framework.
Combo Template - A C++ project set up with two build targets: one for a main.cpp file and one for the doctest unit test framework.

Go to the page for that template, then look for the link tagged Latest under the Releases section on the right side of the page. Click that link to go to the Releases page, then download the zip file for the latest release. It will be named something like TemplateBasicProject.zip.

Do not use Download ZIP from the main repository page. If you download that way, the project folder will not be set up correctly to document your work history.

Extract the zip file into a folder where you want to keep your work. Then rename the extracted folder to whatever you want to call your project. (Make sure not to include spaces in the file/folder names.)

You can keep reusing a template that you have downloaded. Just extract the zip file to a new location each time you want to start a new project.