We are going to make your profile look something as splendid as the GIF you saw in my previous blog! Feel free to follow these steps and reform your GitHub profile, because that’s how I made mine!
1. Changing your Avatar
As you hover on your profile picture, it shows a prompt to “Change your avatar”.
Click on your profile picture to dive into it!
Or
Direct to profile settings: In the upper-right corner of any page, click your profile photo, then click Settings.
- Profile picture
Fun fact: When you sign up for an account, GitHub provides you with a randomly generated “identicon”. Your identicon is generated from a hash of your user ID, so there’s no way to control its color or pattern.
We will start with something as basic as adding a profile picture in place of your randomly generated identicon. Adding a picture to your profile makes it look legitimate and helps identify you across GitHub!
Note: If you don’t feel comfortable uploading a photo of your own, you can upload a bitmoji that matches you or just any image you feel represents you!
- A techy/funky Bio
After that, filling in a small bio about yourself would also be great! The bio field is limited to 160 characters. With the help of @mentions and emoji, you can include information about where you currently or have previously worked, or interesting facts about yourself.
Something Like -
I’m a java programmer, a frontend developer, and a tech enthusiast! I listen to songs for 16 hours of my day!
Or
I have broken humor!
- Basic info
Next, you can add basic info like URL to your personal site/portfolio, Twitter handles, company/college, and location.
Note: All these fields are optional and can be deleted/updated at any time.
As you are done with that you can proceed to the “update profile” button to save the changes!
After a few seconds, GitHub will show a prompt to view your profile.
BONUS TIP:
After you are back on your profile page it must already look great. One final touch you can add is by setting your status to display information about your current availability on GitHub.
It can be found at the bottom-right of your profile picture.
Or
In the top right corner of GitHub, click your profile photo, then click Set your status or, if you already have a status set, click your current status.
Now, you can add a status / your favorite emoji here.
According to GitHub Docs your status will show:
- on your GitHub profile page.
- when people hover over your username or avatar on GitHub.
- on a team page for a team where you’re a team member. For more information, see “About teams.”
- on the organization dashboard in an organization where you’re a member. For more information, see “About your organization dashboard.”
Note: When you set your status, you can also let people know that you have limited availability on GitHub.
PRO TIP: You can also set the theme & skin tone for your profile. Since GitHub offers various themes you can apply to your profile! You can choose the one that suits you the best.
To do so, go to: Settings -> Appearance
Note: The theme changes only for you! It’s like entering or exiting the dark mode!
2. Popular repository section
- Customize your pins
You can choose which repositories you want someone to see when they first visit your profile. By default, you can pin 6 repositories. Customize your pins to select your favorite repositories.
The option to do the same is in the top-right corner of your page
Or
Adjacent to your “Popular repository” section.
- Reorder
You can reorder your pins with the help of the 6 dots present on the top-right corner of each of your repositories. Drag and drop them in the order you wish.
Note: If you wish to increase the number of pins, you can refer to this amazing repository:
3. Contributions Calendar
You’re making contributions to projects all over GitHub and GitHub wants to show everyone what you’re doing. The contributions calendar shows how frequently you’ve been contributing over the past year.
- Adding Contributions graph: You might have seen a graph in your favorite GitHub Profiles. This will give viewers more context about the types of contributions you make.
You can add a graph to your profile by simply checking the activity overview option in contribution settings.
Kudos! You have made all the basic changes!
Now that you are done with all these changes, it’s time to move to The Next Level!
If this blog helped you, you can follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn. You can also check out my GitHub Profile for reference!
