This article describes the steps to interactively install Git client tools and Visual Studio Code.
[!div class="checklist"]
- Install Git
- Install Visual Studio Code
- Install Docs Authoring Pack
Important
If you're making only minor changes to an article, you do not need to complete the steps in this article and can continue directly to the quick changes workflow.
Contributors who will be making major changes are encouraged to complete these steps, which enable you to use the major/long-running 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.
This install includes the Git version control system and Git Bash, the command-line app that you use to interact with your local Git repository.
Install Git client tools for Windows
- Git for Mac is provided as part of the Xcode Command Line Tools. Simply run
gitfrom the command line. You will be prompted to install the command line tools if needed. You can also download Git for Mac from the Software Freedom Conservancy. - Git for Linux and Unix
Follow the instructions for your chosen client for installation and configuration.
In the next article, you will Set up a local Git repository.
Additional Git resources are available here: Git terminology | Git basics | Learning Git and GitHub
Visual Studio Code, also known as VS Code, is a lightweight editor that works on Windows, Linux, and Mac. It includes git integration, and support for extensions.
Tip
To launch VS Code and open the current folder, run the command code . in the command line or bash shell. If the current folder is part of a local git repo, the GitHub integration appears in Visual Studio Code automatically.
[!INCLUDEInstall Visual Studio Code extension]
Important
The Docs Authoring Pack for Visual Studio Code includes basic Markdown authoring assistance, page previews, support for Markdown templates, markdownlint, and Code Spell Checker. These features ease and streamline the contributions process. As such, we consider the Docs Authoring Pack a required extension for contributors.
To install the Docs Authoring Pack, choose Install from the Docs Authoring Pack page in the VS Code Marketplace.
To use the Docs Authoring Pack functionality, press Alt+M in Visual Studio Code. To configure a toolbar to show the functions available, edit the Visual Studio Code settings (Control+comma), and add user setting "markdown.showToolbar": true.
For more information, see Docs Authoring Pack for Visual Studio Code.
Markdown is a lightweight markup language used to author the content. Visual Studio Code is the preferred tool for editing Markdown at Microsoft. Atom is another popular tool for editing Markdown. Markdown basics and the features supported by Open Publishing Services (OPS) custom Markdown extensions, are covered in the Markdown Reference article.