Set Up a GitHub Account

GitHub is an open source website hosting service. If you already have a hosting service and are happy with them, then you can skip this step altogether. However, this step-by-step instruction on transferring your Wordpress website to Tiddlywiki includes swapping the way your website is hosted too.

If you are still with me, go to GitHub and create an account. Now, don’t freak out when you get to your new GitHub Dashboard. I had an account for several months before I decided to make the move, so when I logged into GitHub the first time, I honestly had no idea what I was looking at or how to use it. At the time, I had no incentive to learn either so I logged out and didn’t go back.

However, it’s not as scary as it looks. There is an option to work through a test scenario and GitHub will “train” you how to create your first repository and publish it online. It doesn’t take long, and you’ll get a feeling of satisfaction when you reach the end of the training session. I recommend you do that, but I’ll go through it here too.

Basically, you click on “New Repository” (top right corner next to your avatar). If you want to publish a public repository then you’ll need to use your user name as the repository name and add the GitHub extension, i.e username.github.io

Type a description, something like “My very first repository” will do for now.

Make sure “Public” is chosen in the next section. I would recommend ticking “Add a README file” and then click on “Create repository”.

Well done. You’ve created a repository, but there’s nothing in it yet. Remember that empty tiddlywiki you downloaded in the previous step and I told you to change the name to index.html? Well, click on the repository you just created, and you should be able to see the README file. Now click on “Add File” and then “Upload files”. Upload the index.html file.

Navigate to https://username.github.io (replacing username with your actual user name, of course).

You should see an empty Tiddlywiki. You can navigate around it, but at this stage you cannot save any changes, so don’t get carried away and put tons of data in there yet as you’ll be wasting your time and energy.

I recommend that you practice what you just learned a couple of times to get the hang of it. And yes, you can upload a Tiddlywiki file with content already in it. But, remember, you cannot make changes while it’s online just yet. Those instructions will come later.