Code For America Dot Org
This repository holds the source code and static assets for the last version of codeforamerica.org, which can be found at archive.codeforamerica.org. Learn more about what Code for America does on our About page.
Note: Code for America's site is no longer built using the files in this repository. We've moved to another system (more details on that soon). If you want to report a bug or issue with the current site, please send an email to [email protected] or visit the site and use the live chat support feature in the bottom right of the page.
How It Works
We use Github like a content management system -- all our templates and content are collaboratively edited by staff and external contributors on Github. We use Jekyll to generate everything into static HTML files that are served using Apache.
How We Built it
Our technology and communications teams built the site in partnership with Brighton web design firm Clearleft and Colorado branding firm Dojo4. Ongoing maintenance and improvements on the site are done collaboratively with internal staff and external volunteers. Members of the CfA community are welcomed to provide their input using Github issues, or help make improvements by submitting a Pull Request.
Who’s Working On It
- David Leonard: code, design, project management
- Michal Migurski: hosting, answering many questions
- Andrew Hyder: brigade site updates
- Molly McLeod: design
- Zoe Blumenfeld: audience engagement
- Matthew Loveless: analytics
- Alexis Charles: writing
- Nicole Neditch: writing
... and many more CfA staff members and community contributors.
How to contribute
Submitting a Pull Request
An easy way to submit a pull request for just simple text changes is to:
- Find the page you'd like to edit on the master branch.
- Use GitHub's built in editor to make your changes.
- Down below the editor window, include a brief one sentence description of what you changed. Something like "Updated Andrew Hyder's bio".
- Click the green Propose File Change button.
- You'll get to review your changes. If everything looks right, click the green "Send pull request" button.
If you need to add or replace an image, you'll need to:
- Fork the project.
- Create a topic branch.
- Add the image in the correct directory.
- Commit and push your changes.
- Submit a pull request.
Submitting an Issue
We use the GitHub issue tracker to track bugs and features. Before submitting a bug report or feature request, check to make sure it hasn't already been submitted. You can indicate support for an existing issue by voting it up. When submitting a bug report, please include a screenshot and any additioanl details that can help us debug, such as your operating system and browser version.
Previewing Your Changes Using Jekit
You can use the nifty Jekit app to preview changes you make to this site.
To do this, fork this repo, and commit your changes on a branch to your fork. You can then preview what your changes look like by navigating to:
https://jekit.codeforamerica.org/USERNAME/codeforamerica.org/BRANCHNAME/
For a basic example of its usage, if GitHub user @lolname has made changes to the /people/dave-guarino page on their fork (on the master branch), they can preview their changes using Jekit by going to:
https://jekit.codeforamerica.org/lolname/codeforamerica.org/master/people/dave-guarino/
Running the Site Locally on Your Computer
To run the site locally on your own computer (most helpful for previewing your own changes), you will need Jekyll installed (click here for Jekyll installation instructions.)
Fork and clone the repository, then run the following command in the root directory of the repo:
jekyll serve
or
jekyll serve --watch which will watch for changes to files.
Your computer should now be serving your local copy of the site at:
Editing stylesheets
All CSS and stylesheets are hosted in the pattern-library repository, and served lived from http://style.codeforamerica.org.
Technology Patterns
Uses Jekyll for templating – converted HTML files are in the _site folder.
Copyright
Copyright (c) 2009-2014 Code for America. See LICENSE for details.