How to write a gist
How to write a gist
Creating gists
In this article
You can create two kinds of gists: public and secret. Create a public gist if you’re ready to share your ideas with the world or a secret gist if you’re not.
Every gist is a Git repository, which means that it can be forked and cloned. If you are signed in to GitHub when you create a gist, the gist will be associated with your account and you will see it in your list of gists when you navigate to your gist home page.
Gists can be public or secret. Public gists show up in Discover, where people can browse new gists as they’re created. They’re also searchable, so you can use them if you’d like other people to find and see your work.
Secret gists don’t show up in Discover and are not searchable. Secret gists aren’t private. If you send the URL of a secret gist to a friend, they’ll be able to see it. However, if someone you don’t know discovers the URL, they’ll also be able to see your gist. If you need to keep your code away from prying eyes, you may want to create a private repository instead.
After creating a gist, you cannot convert it from public to secret.
You’ll receive a notification when:
You can pin gists to your profile so other people can see them easily. For more information, see «Pinning items to your profile.»
You can discover public gists others have created by going to the gist home page and clicking All Gists. This will take you to a page of all gists sorted and displayed by time of creation or update. You can also search gists by language with Gist Search. Gist search uses the same search syntax as code search.
Since gists are Git repositories, you can view their full commit history, complete with diffs. You can also fork or clone gists. For more information, see «Forking and cloning gists».
Gist supports mapping GeoJSON files. These maps are displayed in embedded gists, so you can easily share and embed maps. For more information, see «Working with non-code files.»
Creating a gist
Follow the steps below to create a gist.
You can also create a gist using the GitHub CLI. For more information, see » gh gist create » in the GitHub CLI documentation.
Alternatively, you can drag and drop a text file from your desktop directly into the editor.
Sign in to GitHub.
Type an optional description and name for your gist. 
Type the text of your gist into the gist text box. 
Optionally, to create a public gist, click
, then click Create public gist. 
Help us make these docs great!
All GitHub docs are open source. See something that’s wrong or unclear? Submit a pull request.
Gitlab GIST
Introduction to Gitlab GIST
GIST in GITHUB is a new feature shared by GITHUB. The intention of GIST in GITHUB is great. GISTS are more like code snippets. The major use of GIST is to write a short piece of code or a small functionality and allowing to share that functionality among other users. So GIST is more like a memo of code. A snap of code or a snap of functionality that can be shared among other users for reference. So the process of sharing code snippets and Pastes is largely resolved using GIST. So when a coworker or some among the friends are expected to be shared with a sample piece of code then GISTS come into play widely. Let’s discuss these GITHUB GISTS widely further. In this topic, we are going to learn about Gitlab GIST.
How to Use Github Gist?
Every GIST is a GIT repository. So all operations of a normal git repository can be performed here too. Operations like Forking, cloning, etc. can be very well performed here. The Account which is currently signed in will have the allocation for the particular number of GISTS involved. The option to allow it to be set as private or public is available in GISTS. This means we can prefer to set a GIST in such a way that if needed we can keep it open for the public or it can also be restricted within yourself or a particular set of users. The discover option lists all the public GISTS created. From the point of secret GISTS, these secret GISTS can be searched and do not appear in the Discover option.
Web development, programming languages, Software testing & others
The process of what type of GIST is been created is probably one time. This means when a GIST is created as public then it cannot be converted as a Private or a secret GIST, same as when a GIST is created as a secret then that specific GIST cannot be converted again to the public option. When a lot of security or if the intention is to create a code away from other developers who may acquire your code then PRIVATE or SECRET is the possible option to prefer.
Notifications are another key item in a GIST, a notification will be received on below possible conditions such as below,
All changes made across the GIST can also be noticed in the GIST creations. The changes made will be tightly kept in a listing and this can be explored in the revision section. So the revision sections mention all the GIST changes associated. The process of pinning is also available. Moreover, the commit level history can also be fully viewed and analyzed, and then it can be complete with the differences.
How to create a gist?
Gist Example
Let’s discuss one among the examples of the GISTS below. The given snap below in the example lists a common search of all the gists available in github and it also lists a sample example of one among random gists which was created for reference. GISTS brings a lot of flexibility for the users to comfortably share a small set of code among the other users involved. This is among the key advantages of using GISTS across the platforms.
Creating gists
In this article
You can create two kinds of gists: internal and secret. Create an internal gist if you’re ready to share your ideas with enterprise members or a secret gist if you’re not.
Secret gists don’t show up in Discover, http(s)://gist.[hostname]/discover and are not searchable. Secret gists aren’t private. If you send the URL of a secret gist to another enterprise member, they’ll be able to see it. However, if any other enterprise member discovers the URL, they’ll also be able to see your gist. If you need to keep your code away from prying eyes, you may want to create a private repository instead.
After creating a gist, you cannot convert it from internal to secret.
You’ll receive a notification when:
Since gists are Git repositories, you can view their full commit history, complete with diffs. You can also fork or clone gists. For more information, see «Forking and cloning gists».
Creating a gist
Follow the steps below to create a gist.
You can also create a gist using the GitHub CLI. For more information, see » gh gist create » in the GitHub CLI documentation.
Alternatively, you can drag and drop a text file from your desktop directly into the editor.
Sign in to GitHub AE.
Type an optional description and name for your gist.
Type the text of your gist into the gist text box.
Optionally, to create an internal gist, click
, then click Create internal gist. 
Help us make these docs great!
All GitHub docs are open source. See something that’s wrong or unclear? Submit a pull request.
Little Known Ways To Utilize GitHub Gists
What is Gist?
Gist is an easy method to share snippets or excerpts of data with others. A gist can be a string of code, a bash script or some other small piece of data. These bits of information are hosted by GitHub as a repository. Using gist has all the benefits of utilizing a GitHub repository, and also provides a more lightweight way of utilizing GitHub’s versioning features.В
A gist can be either public or secret. If you are logged in to GitHub when you create a gist, it will show up in your dashboard. You can also drag and drop a file onto your gist editor and it will be addedВ
Not only are gists free to create and store on GitHub, but they are also easy to create. You can add a new gist, modify, and delete files and code entirely from within your browser. Lastly, there is no need to download or install a program to use gist.
How Do I Create a Gist?
Creating a gist is simple. Here are the steps to add a gist to your GitHub account.
1, Sign in to GitHub
2. Browse to your gist homepage.
3. Type in a name and description for our gist.В
5. Select if the gist will be public or private. Click on your selection and your gist will be created.
How Do I Edit or Delete a Gist?
In the top right corner of your gist page, there will be a menu that allows for multiple functions to be performed on your gist.
We can edit, delete, unsubscribe, star, embed, copy, share, and download a raw copy or zipped copy of a gist.
We also can share a gist in multiple ways. You can opt to embed the gist into a website, copy a shareable link to send, clone (or copy) the gist via the git command to a local repository or via SSH.В
Review Your Gists
Once you have logged into your GitHub account, click on your username in the top right corner. This will open a menu where you can see an option called вЂYour gists’.В
Once you clicked that option, you will see your gist page.
Create A Gist From the Command Line
We also can create a gist via the command line without having to actually log in to GitHub. This does require you to create a personal access token from the settings’ menu.
Simply click on the “Generate new token” button on the top right-hand side. This will open a new window where you can create a new access token. Simply add a name for the token in the note field.
Next, select a scope from the available options.
We will choose the gist option.
Then, we can click on the green “Generate token” button at the bottom of the available scopes page. This will open a new page that contains your new secret token.
As the note states, Make sure you copy your new personal access token to a safe place as it will not be shown again.
We can now use that token as our password to access the GitHub API functions.
To add a gist via the command line, we can use the following command.
When we run the above command, we will get output on the command line which looks like this.
Now, if we go back to our gist list, we can see the new gist has been added!
How Can Gists Be Used?
There are multiple ways to utilize gists. Here are a few examples we have found that are very useful in our daily activities.
Other Uses For Gists
In addition to the above uses, this post outlines how gist can be uses as a syntax highlighter. There are also several third-party services that have been created specifically around the use of gists.
Conclusion
As you can see, gist are a handy way to store random data you create. Gists have a multitude of uses that is only limited by your imagination!
Have questions about how gists can be more useful? Give us a call at 800.580.4985, or open a chat or ticket with us to speak with one of our knowledgeable Solutions Team or an experienced Hosting Advisor today!
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About the Author: David Singer
I am a g33k, Linux blogger, developer, student, and former Tech Writer for Liquidweb.com. My passion for all things tech drives my hunt for all the coolz. I often need a vacation after I get back from vacation.
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What You Can Do With Gists on Github?
Github is the popular website among software developers for sharing code. The site hosts over 12 million open-source projects — including games, books and even fonts — making Github the largest code repository on the Internet.
Github offers another useful service called Gist that developers often use to dump their code snippets but Gists aren’t just for geeks and coders — they offer something for everybody. If you have ever heard of web apps like Pastebin or Pastie, Gist are similar but more polished, they are free of advertising and loaded with more features.
Here are some areas where you can utilize the Gist service. And you don’t have to be a geek for this.
1. Write Text Anonymously
You don’t have to create an account at Github to use Gists. Just go to gist.github.com, write any block of text in the space provided and create a Gist. You can choose to have a secret Gist that will not be visible to search engines but only to those who know the URL of that secret Gist.
2. Track Changes like a Wiki
When you edit the content of a Gist that has already been published, the previous versions of the Gist are also preserved. You can hit the Revisions tab to track edits made over time and there’s a built-in diff engine that will visually highlight the changes between any two versions of a gist. This can also be used for comparing text files.
3. Publish Gists in Rich Text
4. Gist as a Writing Platform
While there exist plenty of writing engines — from WordPress to Medium — you can also Github’s Gist service to quickly publish your writings on the web. Create a Gist either in plain text or markdown format and then use roughdraft.io to publish that Gist as a standalone web page. It’s like integrating Readability with your Gists. And you can use emoji (smileys) too!
If you are using Dictation.io for online speech recognition, you can directly save the transcribed text as a public Gist for quick sharing via Email or Twitter.
5. Host Single Page Websites on Gist
Bl.ocks is one of the most interesting applications built for Gists. You can write your HTML, CSS and JavaScript code in plain text, save the Gist as index.html and then use bl.ocks.org to serve the rendered version of that HTML web page as it should appear in the browser. For instance, here’s a live version of an HTML file that is hosted on gist.github.com.
There are bandwidth constraints obviously but bl.ock.org is still an excellent tool for hosting your HTML through Gists. The other alternative is Google Drive.
You can use Gists to keep track of pending tasks (see example). The tasks are written in a special syntax in plain text but they are rendered as a list of check boxes.
You can check or uncheck the items and the source text will update automatically. If your Gist is public, anyone can see your to-do lists but only the gist owner can change the status of individual tasks.
7. Gist as a Web Clipper
The GistBox add-on for Google Chrome lets you save text snippets from web pages as public or private gists. You can even add labels, or #hashtags, to your gists making discovery easier.
8. Embed Gists in Web Pages
You can embed any Gist in your web pages with a line of JavaScript code. The embedded Gists maintain all the formatting and syntax highlighting and visitors to your website can easily clone (or fork) your Gist into their own Github accounts. There’s also a plugin and shortcode for embedding Gists in WordPress blogs.
9. Measure the Traffic
You can use Google Analytics to measure the traffic to your Gists. Since Github does not allow JavaScript code to run inside plain text Gists, we can use the GA Beacon to log visits in real-time to Gists.
Add this line to your Gists, save in Markdown format and it will add a transparent tracking image to your Gists.
10. Manage Gists from the Desktop
Gisto is free desktop application that lets you manage your Gists outside the browser. You can search Gists, edit the content of gists, view revisions over time and also share Gists. The app is available for Mac OSX, Windows and Linux. The other alternative is GistBox which is a web app.