I Don’t Know What: WebDev
Welp, I have a domain now and a server to run it on, a WHM / cPanel server, but I honestly have no idea how to connect everything together.
3 Things I know to start:
* cPanel Does have a Menu item called “GitHub”, or something close to that
* I know how to to use Git and GitHub
* I know how to create a WordPress website.
3 Things I dont know to start:
* What should I have on my GitHub Repo
* What cPanel needs from me to use a GitHub Repo
* What happens on my cPanel account when a push updates to my GitHub Repo
I guess to start… I’ll make a website locally?
Might as well start there right?
**WordPress Local Setup**
Lucky I already have a Local WP development environment so setting up the initial WordPress website was just a couple clicks. I also have access to a Premium WordPress theme, OllieWP Pro, that I will be using as the initial Block Theme I will build off of.
I know I want to make my own custom blocks and features for my website that Ollie doesn’t offer… soooo I guess I’m making a child theme.
**Child Theme for WordPress**
… so Ollie has a “Create Child Theme” button. This would be cool it worked well. Brb.
Ok yea that wasn’t hard at all. I literally just added my name as the Author, made a couple alterations to the naming and descriptions, and clicked create!
And yes, it did create a *physical* child theme in the wp-content/themes folder. I did notice that i did notice that the child theme didn’t have a theme.json file. I know the parent theme.json is inherited, but I wonder if that will come back to haunt me later. Can I still make custom color pallets? custom typography settings? etc?
1 thing is for sure though, at the very least I will need the child theme I made as the main focus of the GitHub Repo since this is the only place I can add my custom code.
**Sooo I have a website Locally… Now cPanel?**
I know for certain I need to, at the very least, point my domain name to my server. So lets do that!
Records Changed:
* The Root Domain’s **A Record**
* Double Check that the **www. Record** points to the root domain name
* **Wild Card (\*) Record** also pointing to the same IP Address as the **A Record**
* This is for making staging sites later on.
* Which, now that I think about it… how do staging site work with the GitHub integration on cPanel?
Now that My records are point to my WHM / cPanel server, its time to make an account on it for my domain, setup the SSL so it doesn’t look sus, and finally click on the GitHub button on the cPanel Dashboard.
**Git™ Version Control**
Well first discovery, the GubHub thing is called “Git™ Version Control”. Initial assumptions is this will not connect to my personal GitHub repos, but who knows.
… And with all things software, there is a development doc i need to read: https://docs.cpanel.net/cpanel/files/git-version-control/
From the Doc:
* First step… read a different doc (Set Up Deployment: https://docs.cpanel.net/knowledge-base/web-services/guide-to-git-set-up-deployment)
* Yea, I’ll do that after.
* Requirements:
* Have Shell Access in my cPanel Account
* SSH configuration in order to clone the private repo.
* You can create a repo on the cPanel account or link it to a Privately owned Repo.
* Curious about the whole “Create on” version of a repo… presumably this is only for the specific cPanel account and not the entire server?
* You can point the repo to the places in your file manager that you want the files added.
* There are place you are restricted from uploading to. They all make sense though and are places I don’t really need to touch anyways.
Ok, I wont say I understood all of it, but it pretty much makes sense.
I know I want a PRIVATE repo that I own and have on my own GitHub account. I know that I can connect to the repo with some requirements, and i know i can update the repo and have it sync to a specific place in my file manager… that seems so far so good to me.
Ok lots of work to do, but I can setup a WordPress website on my cPanel account and later point my Child Theme I create previously to it.
I think I will create that dummy, or freshly installed, WordPress website now and save setting up / trying to setup the git repos on my next round.