Version Control with Git

In this section we will look at configuring some optional GitHub settings on both a GitHub wide and repository level.

Profile Settings

You access your profile settings by navigating to: https://github.com/settings/profile

Working down the page:

  1. Set your preferred name. This helps collaborators find you on GitHub.
  2. Set a public email, this also helps collaborators find your profile. To keep your email address private click on email settings, then tick the Keep my email addresses private checkbox.
  3. Set your pronouns.
  4. If you have a professional website you can add a link to the URL section.
  5. If you have an ORCID you can link your GitHub profile to your ID.
  6. If you would like to display your organisational affiliation add @<organisation-name> to the Company section.

You can also set a profile picture on this page. Click on the green Update profile button when you have finished making changes.

A screenshot of a users GitHub profile.

You can also make profile changes directly from your profile by clicking on the Edit profile button.

Configuring Notifications

To configure general notification settings navigate to: https://github.com/settings/notifications

Here you can choose a default email for notifications, and set up Custom routing. Custom routing allows you to specify different emails for each organisation you are a member of.

In the Subscriptions section you can decide whether to receive notifications via GitHub, email, or both.

Repository Notifications

You can customise notifications on a repository level. Since you created the weather repository you are automatically watching All Activity. Click on the Unwatch dropdown to change your notification settings.

A screenshot of the GitHub weather repo with the Unwatch dropdown expanded.

The same dropdown will display Watch on repositories that do not belong to you.

Organisation Membership

If you are a member of an organisation you can make your membership of the organisation public or private by navigating to: https://github.com/orgs/<organisation-name>/people

Search for your name and click on the right hand dropdown to change your organisation visibility.

A screenshot of the GitHub organisation People settings for an organisation showing how to change your organisation visibility.

The default visibility setting will depend on your organisation. If you set the visibility to public your membership will appear on your profile, https://github.com/<your-username>/, near the bottom left of the screen.

Teams Membership

One across from the People settings are the Teams settings: https://github.com/orgs/<organisation-name>/teams. You can leave, request to join, or if you are an admin add members to your GitHub team here. Teams let you manage access to repositories for a group of people all at once. Some organisations restrict the creation of GitHub teams to central admins.

Keypoints


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