Install authoring tools

Last update: Fri Mar 10 2023 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

This article describes the steps to interactively install Git client tools and editing tools.

NOTE

If you’re making only minor changes to an article, you do not need to complete the steps in this article. You can simply make changes in your web browser.

Major contributors are encouraged to complete these steps, which enable you to use the major changes workflow. Even if you have write permissions in the main repository, we highly recommend (and this guide assumes) that you fork and clone the repository, so that you have read/write permissions to store your proposed changes in your fork.

Install Git client tools

For a graphical user interface tool that helps sync your local files with your server files, download GitHub Desktop. Other popular options include Software Freedom Conservancy’s available GUI Clients page or Microsoft Visual Studio Code.

If you prefer a command-line interface (CLI) over a graphical user interface (GUI), install the latest version of Software Freedom Conservancy’s Git client tools. The install includes the Git version control system and Git Bash, the command-line app that you can use to interact with your local Git repository.

Git learning resources are available here:

Understand Markdown editors

Markdown is a lightweight markup language that is both easy to read and easy to learn. Therefore, it has rapidly become an industry standard. To write articles in Markdown, we recommend that you first download and install a Markdown editor. Popular options include Visual Studio Code, Adobe Brackets, and Atom.

Markdown text is saved into files with .md extension.

Additional details on how to write with Markdown, including Markdown basics and custom Markdown extensions, are covered in the Using Markdown article.

f0a0e44c-5d56-45af-ac98-47677caca18f