GitHub App: The Definitive Guide

GitHub is a great platform for programmers and developers. Peoples come together and work on different projects, contribute, report issues and share their opinions. GitHub is owned by Microsoft. The core team of GitHub recently released its mobile app for both Android and iOS. You can download the app for Android from Google’s Play Store and for iOS from Apple’s App Store. As the app for GitHub is new, then you may have some difficulties in using the App. So, we are writing this definitive guide about the basics of the GitHub App.

About GitHub App GitHub App was released by the core team of Microsoft’s GitHub on February 15, 2020. At the time of writing this post, it has more than 50,000 downloads on Google Play Store. It can be used by developers to keep track of their projects and get notified about all of the issues and pull requests. Download – Android – iOS

What you can do with GitHub App?

GitHub App is developed to help the developers to manage their repositories and projects on the go. Here are the things, you can do with the GitHub App:

Notifications: You can keep track of all the on-going activities of your projects and repositories. You’ll get notified about all the updates on your mobile and you can view those notifications in your mobile phone in just a few taps, without going to your desktop. Issues: Developers can check the issues reported by peoples on their GitHub project or repositories and also reply to the issues within this app. Pull Requests: Now, you will get notified about the pull request send by other GitHub users that tried to contribute to your project. You can check the updated code of the pull request and merge that pull request within the app. Labels: You can assign labels to different Issues created by users for your project, so you can organize them perfectly, that saves a lot of time while debugging. Browse Code: You can browse the files and code of your very own repositories and forked repositories. However, until now there is no option to edit the uploaded files on our projects.

How to get started with GitHub App

GitHub App is now officially available on Play Store and Apple App Store. You can download it there. Here’s how to get started with GitHub App:

Install the App: First of all open the Google Play Store or Apple’s App Store and Search for GitHub App. There are many apps already available with the same name, so kindly look for the Publisher name for those Apps and only download the app which is provided by an App Developer/Publisher GitHub. Beware of Fake Apps! Open GitHub App: After installing the app from Play Store or App Store, open the app by going to your phone’s app drawer and find the logo of GitHub and click on it to open the App. Sign in with GitHub: When you open the app, you’ll see a sign-in button under the GitHub logo inside the app. Click on the sign-in button. It will open a GitHub login page. Now here you need to login to your GitHub Account with credentials. Authorize App: After logging into your account, you need to authorize access to your account. To authorize you need to click on the “Authorize” button and then it will ask for your password to verify and keep your account safe and that’s it. You’re now logged into your account.

How to Create and View Issues in GitHub App?

In the new GitHub app, you can view, create and manage the issues reported by users of your projects and also contributors’ opinions. Here’s how to do it:

Open GitHub App: To create and view the issues of your repositories and projects in the new GitHub app, first of all, open the GitHub app. To open the GitHub app, go to the app drawer of your phone. Find the app with the GitHub logo, click on it and open it. Create Issue Report: On the dashboard of your GitHub app, you’ll see a “+” button at the top right corner, click on that. It will take you to the issue submission page. On this page, you can create the issue reports. Explain Issue: On the issue submission page, you’ll need to briefly explain your issue. On that page, you’ll have to provide a title of your issue and provide a description. Choose Repository: After briefly explaining and writing about your issue. Now, you need to choose a repository for which you have written the whole issue and click on the arrow button at the right-hand corner to submit it. View your Issues: You can also view the issues, you previously submitted and their replies in this app. You can also comment and reply to other comments.

How to view the code of the repository?

The new app of GitHub offers you to view the code of the repositories that you created to forked from somewhere. Follow the steps below, to view the code of repositories:

Open GitHub: Open the GitHub app on your phone through the app drawer and login to your account through the method explained above. Open Repositories: On the GitHub App’s homepage, you need to click on an option says “Repositories” with a purple icon. Choose repository: After clicking on the Repositories option, you’ll get a long list of repositories that are created or forked on your GitHub account. Browse Code: Now after choosing a repository, you’ll see a page with some information about that particular repositories. On that page, click on the “Browse Code” option. It will display all the files in your repository where you can easily read the code of a particular file by clicking on them.

Conclusion

At last, I would recommend you to use this new GitHub app according to the guide. This app will let you manage most of the work while you are in a remote area or traveling. After using this app, you won’t need to open your laptop or desktop just for checking a few basic things again and again. I would like to request the GitHub team to add an option to edit the code of repositories within the app. I hope they will add this feature in the next update or nearby future.

If you still have some questions about this guide or about GitHub App then please ask in the comment section below. I will try to answer them as soon as possible. If you really loved this article, then I would recommend you to please share the GitHub App Guide with your programmer friends and colleagues on social media like Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter.

Thanks for reading. This article was written by Abhishek Verma, Editor in Chief of Innovative Beast. You can follow him on Twitter and also follow Innovative Beast on Twitter and also join us on Reddit.