I’m currently preparing a workshop for an introduction to Git and GitHub, in the same way we have an Introduction to R and RStudio course for NHS-R Community. But the thing I’ve realised as I’ve been putting my thoughts in order about where to start with Git and GitHub (using RStudio) is that I flit about from using the RStudio Git panel to using the Terminal command line in RStudio. I tend to go for the quickest action to achieve what I want to do which can mean things like:
1 Use the Terminal git add . to “stage” all the files that I want to commit as that’s quicker than clicking on all the files often that I want to commit.
2 Go to RStudio Commit Pending changes icon (the white docs icon with a tick in a Git pane) to write the commit as I find git commit -m "Write your message here" a bit too long!
3 Use the Push and Pull buttons in RStudio as that’s easier than typing git push or git pull in the terminal.
I’ve started trying out the pr_*() functions from the {usethis} package and following the Choose your own adventure by Garrick Aden-Buie so I’ll use those functions when working with branches and pull requests but more about that in the course/future blogs!
Then, when looking for anything on working with Git on the Posit Cloud I found this YouTube video from Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel where I saw that it is possible to stage a number of files in RStudio more easily than clicking on each file! Mine shows selecting a file in the Git pane by clicking on the first click box by the file you want and, I’m guessing, hold down Shift and click the bottom file to select it and all between. The ticks just appear next to all the files!
It’s also possible to select non-concurrent files by clicking on the names and then, when the files you want have a grey highlight over them, click for a tick in “Staged”. To select files that are not concurrent use Ctrl and, if this isn’t familiar already, this is the same way to select files in things like Windows Explorer.
Note too that this can be used to unstage files which is useful when you stage a folder which has lots of files in it but you change your mind about committing them all.
So now my work will probably go:
1 Select the files I want to stage in the Git pane in RStudio
2 Commit using the Commit pending changes button in RStudio
3 Select the Push and Pull buttons in RStudio
because, whilst I much prefer typing on the command line, sometimes clicking on a button makes life just a touch easier.
This blog is also available on GitHub as a quarto document.
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