Website rebuild: Oops. Need to backtrack, missed a step.

[JoyceOdell]

Well, it  probably ia an oops.

It's been a couple of years since my last rebuild, and I had vaguely remembered that setting up the .git account and repository didn't seem to do anything, although there is an invisible .git folder inside my website folder when I look into that folder from inside the program to show for it. 

So, having set up an account once, it didn't sink in that I'd need to do this again for *every* site I build. So I skipped it, when I started this lattest rebuild.

Now I've got a rebuilt site, and have realized that I probably may need to set this up. And the panel for doing it is gone, since I didn't do it at the outset.

The question is:

First; is this trip even necessesary? I don't recall doing this for the 2013 rebuild (and there is no such .git folder inside that site's folder). That site worked perfectly acceptably for nearly a decade. Do I even *need* that .git account. It isn't a commercial site, after all.

Second; is there a way to *retroactively* create such a repository in the new rebuild's folder. The folder is invisibe from anywhere outside the program, so I can't just drag it, or a copy of it over -- and I don't think I'd want to do that anyway. It's a different site, after all.

Third; could I simply create yet another site with a different name, set up the stupid .git account and repository there, and drag all of the assets and content from the rebuilt site into that one (and have it work)?

I should probably note that at some point I may need to pay someone to move the site into a more responsive format. Once I do that, I probably will not be able to keep maintining it myself, so I am in no hurry to do so. But there is no point in making the job harder for whoever might end up having to deal with it.

[BenPleysier]

1. While not absolutely neccessary, I find it good practice to have a version control, which Github offers. It is up to you.
2. A repository can be created at any stage. Even after having launched the site. See for more.
3. You can add to the same repository as the old one. All it will do is to create a new branch.

[JoyceOdell]

Well, I did finally manage to drag-copy the folder into the new site folder from the directory window, and open and save a copy of the .gitignore file from the old site. I only hope that this hasn't borked everything. 

I honestly can't recall any point that I've ever *used* any of this. But have no idea what it might have been doing in the background.

[BenPleysier]

I hope that it worked for you, despite having my doubts. It is best to setup as per Dreamweaver documentation.

[JoyceOdell]

Well, like I said over in the other thread, I just uploaded the site for testing. I didn't upload those files, since they aren't visible in Fetch, which I use to upload things to the domain. So whatever they do, is invisible to me as well. 

At least nothing appears to be borked.

[osgood_]

Git is absolutely NOT necessary assuming you're making frequent backups of your work ie make sure every so often you copy your work to an external hard drive, or stick, have cloud storage backup as an alternative, or something simple, at least, that's just sensible. Git was originally for teams of developers so they could push and pull files between themselves. It might have some merit in that use case but personallly if youre a lone ranger developer and being sensible about backing up your work then you dont need it.

Youre on Mac so you have a back up system in time machine. If you want to access a previous version then just roll it back. Good file management is the key, maybe new kids on the block don't have that so resort to 'helpers', which seems to be the way these days

[JoyceOdell]

Good to know. Thank you for confirming that I probably have never actually used it for anything. And if it is doing anything in the background I wouldn't know about it.

TimeMachine keeps all of my internal and external drives backed up, and I do keep a copy on a a laptop as well.