Using GitHub Desktop to work with RStudio and GitHub

by Shinichi

We earlier wrote this post to show how we can use SSH key to connect GitHub with RStudio. This post was quite popular, but I think I give up teaching how to use SSH to connect to GitHub now, as I had too much trouble with it, especially teaching the course I coordinate (Big Data in BEES). For example, to directly access GitHub via RStudio on a Mac computer, we need to have Git installed; this means one needs to also install the XCode which is a big piece of software, and not everyone’s computer has space left for it.
 
Now, I know,it is so much easier to connect to GitHub with GitHub Desktop – no SSH key required.
 
Thus, my new workflow is:

1. Create a GitHub repo on the GitHub webpage (my profile page).
2. Clone the repo my computer using GitHub Desktop to create a local folder (note that you need to log in GitHub Desktop using your GitHub username and password).
3. Open a RStudio project using this local folder.
4. Then, you can just use RStudio normally but commit, push, and pull using GitHub Desktop.

 
In RStudio, it was not so easy to resolve problems, for example when a committed file was too big to push. In GitHub Desktop it is more intuitive to resolve. Also, it is easy to open the GitHub repo page via GitHub Desktop.
 
Now, I teach the above workflow at my class too and it seems students could start using GitHub and RStudio together quite smoothly via GitHub Desktop!
 
Here is a good YouTube video more on Git, GitHub and GitHub Desktop (note this video dooes not use RStudio but it is still useful to watch).